ProPublica: Articles and Investigationshttp://www.propublica.org/
enProPublicaCopyright 20152015-03-03T08:00:21-05:00http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights20.gifSome Rights ReservedNew York Legislation Would Make It a Felony to Film Patients Without Prior Consenthttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/xk5urIIyaRE/
http://www.propublica.org/article/new-york-legislation-would-make-it-felony-to-film-patients-without-consent/#27083<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/charles_ornstein/">Charles Ornstein</a>
</p>
<p>Newly proposed legislation would <a href="http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&amp;bn=A05161&amp;term=&amp;Summary=Y&amp;Actions=Y&amp;Memo=Y&amp;Text=Y">make it a felony in New York</a> to film patients receiving medical treatment without prior consent.</p>
<p>State Assemblyman Ed Braunstein, a Queens Democrat, filed the bill last month in response to a <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/when-a-patients-death-is-broadcast-without-permission">ProPublica article, published in January with the New York Times</a>. The story detailed how the TV show &#8220;NY Med&#8221; aired the final moments of Mark Chanko&#8217;s life while he was being treated at NewYork-Presybterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. </p>
<p>Neither Chanko nor his family had given the show permission to film him. Although Chanko&#8217;s face was blurred on the broadcast and his voice altered, his widow immediately recognized him when the episode aired in August 2012.</p>
<p>&#8220;You can imagine what the family went through when they witnessed their loved one dying on TV,&#8221; Braunstein said in an interview. &#8220;After watching the story and finding out that they were really without any recourse, we decided we should introduce something to fix the problem. In the future, if someone is going to be filming medical treatment, you have to get a signoff from the patient or the patient&#8217;s power of attorney or health care proxy.&#8221;</p>
<p>Chanko&#8217;s family filed suit against the hospital, ABC News (which aired the show) and the doctor who treated him, but an appellate panel dismissed the case last year. The family has asked for that decision to be reviewed.</p>
<p>ABC declined to comment for this story. The hospital did not respond to requests for comment. The parties do not dispute that they lacked consent from Chanko or his family. In court filings, they say he was not identifiable to the public. <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1385913-abc-motion-to-dismiss.html">The network also has asserted</a> that &#8220;NY Med&#8221; is protected by the First Amendment. <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1385536-ny-prez-motion-to-dismiss.html">Lawyers for New York-Presbyterian have argued</a> that the state does not recognize a common law right to privacy and that any privacy right Chanko had ended upon his death. </p>
<p>Braunstein&#8217;s bill has 10 co-sponsors and has been referred to the Assembly Health Committee. He plans to amend the bill to allow filming for legitimate purposes, such as education or security. He also plans to propose a private right of action allowing patients and their families to sue for damages. Existing federal patient privacy law does not permit patients to sue for violations and neither does <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1385536-ny-prez-motion-to-dismiss.html">New York State&#8217;s Patients&#8217; Bill of Rights</a>.</p>
<p>Kenneth Chanko, Mark Chanko&#8217;s son, said his family is glad to hear about the legislation. &#8220;Any law that would prevent what happened to my father and to our family is something that we would support and that we think is necessary,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Although we&#8217;re still hoping for some justice for ourselves through our lawsuit, it&#8217;s just as important, if not more important, that no one else has to experience what we experienced over this.&#8221;</p>
<p>Joel Geiderman, co-chair of the emergency medicine department at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and chairman of the ethics committee of the American College of Emergency Physicians, opposes filming of patients without prior permission.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s sad that someone would have to pass a law to prevent hospitals from allowing something that is so clearly morally wrong,&#8221; he wrote in an email. &#8220;But at this point, that may be one of the only choices left.&#8221;</p> <p class="note related-note"><p><em>Interested in patient privacy? Read our story about how <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/fines-remain-rare-even-as-health-data-breaches-multiply">rarely federal health watchdogs fine organizations</a> that don&#8217;t protect the privacy and security of patient records. And <a href="http://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/item/has-your-medical-privacy-been-compromised">share your story if your privacy was violated</a>.</em></p></p><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/xk5urIIyaRE" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-03-03T08:00:21-05:00http://www.propublica.org/article/new-york-legislation-would-make-it-felony-to-film-patients-without-consent/Alleged Patient Safety Kickbacks Lead To $1 Million Settlementhttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/NuZe71L397U/
http://www.propublica.org/article/alleged-patient-safety-kickbacks-lead-to-1-million-settlement/#27084<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/marshall_allen/">Marshall Allen</a>
</p>
<p>Dr. Chuck Denham, once a leading voice for patient safety, will pay $1 million to settle civil allegations that he took kickbacks to promote a drug company's product in national health quality guidelines, <a href="http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-settles-false-claims-act-allegations-against-patient-safety-consultant-and-his">the Justice Department announced</a> Monday.</p>
<p>Denham, a patient safety consultant from Laguna Beach, Calif., had allegedly solicited and accepted monthly payments from CareFusion Corp., maker of the antiseptic ChloraPrep, while serving as co-chairman of a National Quality Forum committee in 2009 and 2010.</p>
<p>The nonprofit quality forum in Washington, D.C., reviews evidence and makes recommendations on best practices that are considered the gold-standard by health care providers nationwide.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/hidden-financial-ties-rattle-top-health-quality-group">ProPublica previously reported</a> that Denham hadn't disclosed the payments to the panel of experts he was leading for the forum, and that other members of the Safe Practices Committee had not intended to endorse ChloraPrep. But Denham had advocated for the drug during the group's meetings.</p>
<p>The committee's final report recommended the product's formulation to prevent infections, ProPublica found.</p>
<p>"Kickback schemes undermine the integrity of medical decisions, subvert the health marketplace and waste taxpayer dollars," said Benjamin C. Mizer, acting assistant attorney for the Justice Department's civil division, in a news release announcing the settlement.</p>
<p>According to the Justice Department, the kickbacks to Denham caused the submission of false or fraudulent claims for ChloraPrep to the government's health care programs. As part of the settlement, Denham will be excluded from participating in Medicare and Medicaid programs.</p>
<p>"Quality and patient safety must drive all medical recommendations," said Inspector General Daniel R. Levinson of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General. "Doctors that put profits ahead of this core value must be held accountable."</p>
<p>Neither CareFusion nor Denham, who runs the consulting company Health Care Concepts and the research organization Texas Medical Institute of Technology, returned calls for comment.</p>
<p>Denham did not admit to wrongdoing as part of the settlement. He previously <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1009024-c-denham-statement-01-23-14-dist-2.html#document/p1/a142128">denied any wrongdoing</a>, saying his company had legitimate contracts for $11.6 million starting in 2008 with Cardinal Health, the parent company of CareFusion.</p>
<p>Denham had enjoyed star status in the patient safety world until January 2014, when the <a href="http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/carefusion-pay-government-401-million-resolve-allegations-include-more-11-million-kickbacks">Justice Department first alleged</a> an improper relationship involving his work with CareFusion. He was beloved by patient advocates, a regular on the conference speaking circuit and produced a documentary with actor Dennis Quaid, whose newborn twins had suffered a medication error.</p>
<p>After the kickback allegations, he was removed as editor of the Journal of Patient Safety, where <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/patient-safety-journal-adjusts-after-an-eye-opening-scandal">an expert review found conflicts of interest</a>. Denham's downfall has been called <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/patient-safety-journal-adjusts-after-an-eye-opening-scandal">the patient safety movement's first scandal</a>.</p><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/NuZe71L397U" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-03-02T20:51:12-05:00http://www.propublica.org/article/alleged-patient-safety-kickbacks-lead-to-1-million-settlement/Ebola-infected Nurse Contends Dallas Hospital Violated Her Privacyhttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/nykaLGwgmxE/
http://www.propublica.org/article/ebola-infected-nurse-contends-dallas-hospital-violated-her-privacy/#27082<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/charles_ornstein/">Charles Ornstein</a>
</p>
<p><em>This post was updated on March 3, 2015, to include additional comment from the hospital system, which was released after the story was published.</em></p>
<p>It was a touching scene, meant to buck up a hospital &#8211; and a community &#8211; shaken when one of its own nurses was infected with the Ebola virus. </p>
<p>Last fall, when Dallas nurse Nina Pham was about to be transferred for treatment from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas to the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Maryland, a doctor videotaped her farewell from her hospital bed.</p>
<p>&#8220;I love you guys,&#8221; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL_WJfZfz7g">Pham says, wiping away tears</a>. </p>
<p>&#8220;We love you Nina,&#8221; the doctor replies.</p>
<p>The hospital released the video as it fended off accusations that it did not do enough to protect its staff after a patient who had contracted Ebola in Liberia sought treatment at Texas Health Presbyterian and died.</p>
<p>Now, in an interview with the Dallas Morning News <a href="http://res.dallasnews.com/interactives/nina-pham/">published over the weekend</a>, Pham contends she didn&#8217;t give permission for the hospital to record her or to make the video public. Pham <a href="http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2015/03/ebola-nurse-nina-pham-files-lawsuit-against-texas-health-resources.html/">filed a lawsuit Monday</a> against the hospital&#8217;s parent company, Texas Health Resources (THR), claiming not only negligence related to her Ebola infection, but violations of her privacy. A federal patient privacy law, known as HIPAA, prohibits health providers from releasing information about patients without their permission.</p>
<p>&#8220;Never once did THR get Nina&#8217;s permission to be used as a PR pawn like this,&#8221; the suit says. &#8220;Never once did THR discuss its purposes or motivations or tell Nina what it was going to do with the information it sought from her. Instead, THR went to this young lady who was not in the position to be making any such decisions, and used her when she was in the darkest moment of her life, all for THR&#8217;s own benefit.&#8221;</p>
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<p>What has been your experience with patient privacy? Do you think your medical information was shared by your doctor or health-care provider? Do you think it was involved in a breach? <a href="http://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/item/has-your-medical-privacy-been-compromised">Tell us your story</a>.</p>
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<p>Beyond that, the lawsuit contends, &#8220;Nina&#8217;s record was grossly and inappropriately accessed by dozens of people throughout the THR system.&#8221;</p>
<p>If the video was made and released without Pham&#8217;s permission, it would mark the latest and, perhaps, most unusual instance yet in which hospitals have gotten into trouble for allowing patients to be videotaped without permission. ProPublica reported in January about a <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/when-a-patients-death-is-broadcast-without-permission">dying man who was filmed without consent</a> by a crew from the real-life medical TV show &#8220;NY Med.&#8221;</p>
<p>In her interview with the Morning News, Pham said that she told the hospital she did not want any information released about her condition. &#8220;I wanted to protect my privacy,&#8221; she said. </p>
<p>According to the article:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The day Pham was transferred to NIH, a notation was made in her medical file that &#8220;she does not have the mental capability to make end-of-life decisions,&#8221; [her lawyer Charla] Aldous said. But PR people from Texas Health were trying to talk to her for a media release &#8220;about how much she loves Presbyterian,&#8221; Aldous said.</p>
<p>Texas Health, with a PR firm&#8217;s help, developed a slogan &#8212; &#8220;Presby Proud&#8221; &#8212; aimed at restoring the community&#8217;s faith in the beleaguered hospital.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pham alleges the doctor who videotaped her misled her about how the footage would be used. The article said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Before Pham&#8217;s flight to Maryland on Oct. 16, she said, a doctor wearing a video camera under his protective hood came into her room and said he was filming her for educational purposes. Pham said she did not give permission for the video, which was released to the media.</p>
<p>&#8220;Thanks for getting well. Thanks for being part of the volunteer team to take care of our first patient,&#8221; a man&#8217;s voice said in the video. &#8220;It means a lot. This has been a huge effort by all of you guys.&#8221;</p>
<p>Pham, still lying in her Dallas hospital bed, got teary-eyed and said, &#8220;Come to Maryland, everybody.&#8221;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Asked about Pham&#8217;s allegations, a Texas Health spokesman sent the following statement: &#8220;Nina Pham served very bravely during a most difficult time as we all struggled to deal with the first case of Ebola to arrive in a U.S. hospital&#8217;s emergency room. Texas Health Resources has a strong culture of caring and compassion, and we view all our employees as part of our family.&nbsp; That&#8217;s why we have continued to support Nina both during and after her illness, and it&#8217;s why she is still a member of our team.&nbsp; As distressing as the lawsuit is to us, we remain optimistic that we can resolve this matter with Nina.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Update: </strong>In an email to employees Monday evening, Texas Health chief executive Barclay Berdan said the chain "was sensitive to Nina&#8217;s privacy, and we adhered to HIPAA rules in determining what information to share publicly. We had Nina&#8217;s consent to share the information about her that was released."</p>
<p class="note related-note"><p><em>Has your doctor or hospital violated your privacy? Check out <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/healthcare-data-breaches">our news app</a> and <a href="http://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/item/has-your-medical-privacy-been-compromised">share your story</a>.</em></p></p><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/nykaLGwgmxE" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-03-02T15:25:39-05:00http://www.propublica.org/article/ebola-infected-nurse-contends-dallas-hospital-violated-her-privacy/Coming Soon: ProPublica Investigates Workers’ Compensationhttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/DwICGIV_wzY/
http://www.propublica.org/article/coming-soon-propublica-investigates-workers-compensation/#27066<p class="byline">
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<h1>Coming Soon: ProPublica and NPR Investigate Workers&#8217; Compensation </h1>
<h2>Over the past decade, states have slashed workers&#8217; compensation benefits, denying injured workers help when they need it most and shifting the costs of workplace accidents to taxpayers.</h2>
<span class="byline">by Michael Grabell, ProPublica, and Howard Berkes, NPR</span>
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<p class="opening"><span class="lead-in"><span class="dropcap">F</span>or nearly a century,</span> American workers and their employers had a compact: A guarantee that after a workplace accident, employers would pay the injured workers&#8217; medical bills and enough of their wages to help during recovery. That compact is fracturing. State legislators &#8212; at the behest of big business and insurance companies &#8212; are slashing benefits and making it harder for injured workers to get the medical care their doctors recommend.</p>
<p>Coming Wednesday, ProPublica and NPR investigate workers&#8217; compensation and this fracturing compact between worker and employer.</p>
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<a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=DwICGIV_wzY:xiv-3XKm-Ic:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=DwICGIV_wzY:xiv-3XKm-Ic:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?i=DwICGIV_wzY:xiv-3XKm-Ic:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=DwICGIV_wzY:xiv-3XKm-Ic:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=DwICGIV_wzY:xiv-3XKm-Ic:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?i=DwICGIV_wzY:xiv-3XKm-Ic:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=DwICGIV_wzY:xiv-3XKm-Ic:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?i=DwICGIV_wzY:xiv-3XKm-Ic:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=DwICGIV_wzY:xiv-3XKm-Ic:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a>
</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/DwICGIV_wzY" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-03-02T14:00:16-05:00http://www.propublica.org/article/coming-soon-propublica-investigates-workers-compensation/Podcast: Protecting Your Health Datahttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/Wm1I8igzEjM/
http://www.propublica.org/podcast/item/podcast-protecting-your-health-data/#27080<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/nicole_collins/">Nicole Collins Bronzan</a>
</p>
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<p>
When hackers breached the IT system of the <a href="https://www.anthemfacts.com/ceo">insurer Anthem</a>, potentially gaining access to 80 million people's records, what exactly, were they looking for? The health records of the average American would seem far from captivating, ProPublica editor-and-chief <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveEngelberg">Stephen Engelberg</a> points out in this week's podcast.
</p>
<p>Senior reporters <a href="https://twitter.com/charlesornstein">Charles Ornstein</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/JuliaAngwin">Julia Angwin</a> explain that while mundane, health records are full of identifying data -- namely, your name, date of birth and Social Security number -- that a hacker could use to open a credit card account, attempt to get medical treatment, or use for tax fraud.
</p>
<p>Other types of hacks -- like the ones at <a href="https://corporate.target.com/about/shopping-experience/payment-card-issue-FAQ">Target</a> and the <a href="https://corporate.homedepot.com/mediacenter/pages/statement1.aspx">Home Depot</a>, compromised only credit card numbers. "With those numbers, if they're canceled, your whole life isn't sort of put at risk," Ornstein says. On the contrary, "if a hacker has your Social Security number and date of birth and your name," he says, "you could end up starting your own durable medical equipment company, and suddenly you can start filing a whole bunch of claims on it without anybody being the wiser."
</p>
<p>That's why proliferation of those kinds of hacks -- health care organizations and their business partners have reported 1,142 large-scale data breaches since 2009 -- are such an urgent problem. Meanwhile, the federal Office for Civil Rights has <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/fines-remain-rare-even-as-health-data-breaches-multiply">fined health care organizations just 22 times</a>.
</p>
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<p>"Unlike other nations that have baseline privacy protections for all data, we basically don't," Angwin says, pointing out that the companies like Anthem have shown "a certain level of technical incompetence" in failing to encrypt their data.
</p>
<p>So what can you do to protect yourself?
</p>
<p>No. 1, Ornstein says, is not to put your Social Security number on health forms. It's simply not necessary to process most claims, he says.
</p>
<p>For more tips, hear the full podcast on <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=352685624">iTunes</a>, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/propublica">SoundCloud</a> and <a href="http://stitcher.com/s/profile.php?fid=20308">Stitcher</a>.
</p>
<p><strong>More:</strong>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/healthcare-data-breaches">News app</a>: Explore the data breaches and fines</li>
<li><a href="http://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/item/has-your-medical-privacy-been-compromised">Share your story</a>: What&#8217;s your patient privacy experience?</li>
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/Wm1I8igzEjM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-03-02T12:44:28-05:00http://www.propublica.org/podcast/item/podcast-protecting-your-health-data/Data-Driven Sentencing May Punish the Poor and More in MuckReads Weeklyhttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/qYu79qlebNA/
http://www.propublica.org/article/data-driven-sentencing-and-more-in-muckreads-weekly/#27079<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/terry_parris/">Terry Parris Jr.</a>
</p>
<p><a href="http://www.revealnews.org/article/did-air-marshals-abandon-high-risk-flights-for-sexual-trysts/"><strong>&quot;If everybody&#39;s getting hooked up, nobody&#39;s going to say anything.&quot;</strong></a> Federal air marshals may have skipped some &quot;high risk&quot; flights that would not fit into their busy schedule of romantic affairs. &nbsp;The alleged transgressions aren&#39;t the first for this service that expanded from a few dozen prior to 9/11 to a few thousand. &quot;The male-dominated agency long has suffered from&nbsp; <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/03/travel/air-marshal-service-probe/">allegations</a>&nbsp;of sexism, cronyism and other&nbsp; <a href="http://www.oig.dhs.gov/assets/Mgmt/OIG_12-28_Jan12.pdf">misconduct</a>,&quot; writes Reveal. <span style="background-color:#fcfed1;"><em>&mdash; Reveal via @<a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=mtfarnsworth&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">mtfarnsworth</a></em></span></p>
<p><a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/027a00d70782476eb7cd07fbcca40fc2/states-predict-inmates-future-crimes-secretive-surveys"><strong>Data-driven sentencing may punish the poor.</strong></a> In an effort to cut prison populations and save billions of dollars, prisons across the U.S. are using lengthy questionnaires to determine inmates&#39; sentencing and the risk of releasing. But while the questionnaires asks about the criminals&#39; history, it also explores issues beyond it. Questions like: Do you have a phone? How many times have you moved? Was one of your parents in jail? Some experts feel that the questions put the poor in an outsized risk of longer sentences. &quot;It&#39;s basically an explicit embrace of the state saying we should sentence people differently based on poverty,&quot; one law professor says. <span style="background-color:#fcfed1;"><em>&mdash; The AP via @<a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=mattapuzzo&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">mattapuzzo</a></em></span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/courts-shackle-juvenile-children-aba"><strong>&quot;These kids are virtually hog-tied.&quot;</strong></a> At least 100,000 children are handcuffed, belly chained and put in leg irons for their day in court each year in the U.S., MotherJones reports. Prosecutors and law enforcement say shackling can help maintains courtroom order. The American Bar Association disagrees and is pushing to end the practice. <span style="background-color:#fcfed1;"><em>&mdash; MotherJones via @<a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=mintymin&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">mintymin</a></em></span></p>
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<a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=qYu79qlebNA:1ilT9WSR68k:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=qYu79qlebNA:1ilT9WSR68k:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?i=qYu79qlebNA:1ilT9WSR68k:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=qYu79qlebNA:1ilT9WSR68k:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=qYu79qlebNA:1ilT9WSR68k:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?i=qYu79qlebNA:1ilT9WSR68k:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=qYu79qlebNA:1ilT9WSR68k:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?i=qYu79qlebNA:1ilT9WSR68k:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=qYu79qlebNA:1ilT9WSR68k:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a>
</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/qYu79qlebNA" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-02-27T12:56:58-05:00http://www.propublica.org/article/data-driven-sentencing-and-more-in-muckreads-weekly/Over 1,100 Health Data Breaches, but Few Fineshttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/fkLISUvS1EM/healthcare-data-breaches
https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/healthcare-data-breaches#27075<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/sisi_wei/" title="View Sisi Wei's other articles">Sisi Wei</a>
and <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/charles_ornstein/" title="View Charles Ornstein's other articles">Charles Ornstein</a></p>
<p>Since October 2009, health care organizations and their business partners reported 1,142 large-scale data breaches, each affecting at least 500 people, to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Of those, seven breaches have resulted in fines.
</p><div class="feedflare">
<a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=fkLISUvS1EM:BTtZGOFG0Kw:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=fkLISUvS1EM:BTtZGOFG0Kw:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?i=fkLISUvS1EM:BTtZGOFG0Kw:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=fkLISUvS1EM:BTtZGOFG0Kw:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=fkLISUvS1EM:BTtZGOFG0Kw:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?i=fkLISUvS1EM:BTtZGOFG0Kw:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=fkLISUvS1EM:BTtZGOFG0Kw:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?i=fkLISUvS1EM:BTtZGOFG0Kw:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=fkLISUvS1EM:BTtZGOFG0Kw:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a>
</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/fkLISUvS1EM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-02-27T11:15:21-05:00https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/healthcare-data-breachesHas Your Medical Privacy Been Compromised? Help ProPublica Investigatehttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/ox41XCWR88Y/
http://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/item/has-your-medical-privacy-been-compromised/#27069Flickr photo via nebneb.<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/charles_ornstein/">Charles Ornstein</a>
</p>
<img src="/images/ngen/get_involved_primary/patient_privacy_callout.jpg" alt="Flickr photo via nebneb." />
<p>ProPublica has been examining the ways in which patient privacy is protected or breached. We&#8217;ve previously written about how well hospitals have complied with the federal patient privacy law, known as HIPAA, and <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/when-a-patients-death-is-broadcast-without-permission">how a real-life medical series filmed a man&#8217;s death without his family&#8217;s permission</a>.</p>
<p>Since October 2009, health care providers and organizations (including third parties that do business with them) have reported more than 1,140 large health data breaches to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services&#8217; Office for Civil Rights, affecting upwards of 41 million people. As these breaches proliferate, however, federal overseers have seldom penalized the health care organizations responsible for safeguarding this data, <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/fines-remain-rare-even-as-health-data-breaches-multiply">our review shows</a>.</p>
<p>What&#8217;s your story? Has your medical information been compromised? Help us further examine this issue. Fill out the form below and share your experience.</p><div class="feedflare">
<a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=ox41XCWR88Y:tKAOfQYdCys:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=ox41XCWR88Y:tKAOfQYdCys:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?i=ox41XCWR88Y:tKAOfQYdCys:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=ox41XCWR88Y:tKAOfQYdCys:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=ox41XCWR88Y:tKAOfQYdCys:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?i=ox41XCWR88Y:tKAOfQYdCys:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=ox41XCWR88Y:tKAOfQYdCys:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?i=ox41XCWR88Y:tKAOfQYdCys:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.propublica.org/~ff/propublica/main?a=ox41XCWR88Y:tKAOfQYdCys:l6gmwiTKsz0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/propublica/main?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"></img></a>
</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/ox41XCWR88Y" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-02-27T11:15:20-05:00http://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/item/has-your-medical-privacy-been-compromised/Fines Remain Rare Even As Health Data Breaches Multiplyhttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/mDu1KX2qaCg/
http://www.propublica.org/article/fines-remain-rare-even-as-health-data-breaches-multiply/#27074<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/charles_ornstein/">Charles Ornstein</a>
</p>
<p class="note copublish-note"><p><em>This story was co-published with NPR's <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/02/27/389328345/fines-remain-rare-even-as-health-data-breaches-multiply">Shots blog</a>.</em></p></p> <p>In a string of meetings and press releases, the federal government&rsquo;s health watchdogs have delivered a stern message: They are cracking down on insurers, hospitals and doctors offices that don&rsquo;t adequately protect the security and privacy of medical records.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve now moved into an area of more assertive enforcement,&rdquo; Leon Rodriguez, then-director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services&rsquo; Office for Civil Rights, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg_-Aj8JbaM">warned at a privacy and security forum</a> in December 2012.</p>
<p>But as breaches of patient records proliferate &ndash; just this month, insurer <a href="https://www.anthemfacts.com/ceo">Anthem revealed a hack</a> that exposed information for nearly 80 million people &ndash; federal overseers have seldom penalized the health care organizations responsible for safeguarding this data, a ProPublica review shows.</p>
<p><noapp></noapp></p>
<div class="pp-interactive">
<h2 class="pp-int-hed">
Over 1,100 Health Data Breaches, but Few Fines</h2>
<p class="pp-int-dek">Since October 2009, health care organizations and their business partners reported 1,142 large-scale data breaches, each affecting at least 500 people, to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Of those, seven breaches have resulted in fines. <strong><a href="https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/healthcare-data-breaches">Explore the app </a></strong></p>
<a href="https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/healthcare-data-breaches"><img src="http://www.propublica.org/images/ngen/gypsy_image_630/20150227-health-privacy-app-callout-630.jpg" /></a> <figcaption>(Sisi Wei and Charles Ornstein, ProPublica)</figcaption></div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Since October 2009, health care providers and organizations (including third parties that do business with them) <a href="https://ocrportal.hhs.gov/ocr/breach/breach_report.jsf">have reported more than 1,140 large breaches</a> to the Office for Civil Rights, affecting upward of 41 million people. They&rsquo;ve also reported more than 120,000 smaller lapses, each affecting fewer than 500 people.</p>
<p>In some cases, records were on laptops stolen from homes or cars. In others, records were targeted by hackers. Sometimes, paper records were forgotten on trains or otherwise left unattended.</p>
<p>Yet, over that time span, the Office for Civil Rights <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/enforcement/examples/index.html">has fined health care organizations just 22 times</a>.</p>
<p>By comparison, the California Department of Public Health, which also levies fines against hospitals for breaches of patient privacy, <a href="http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/pages/lncbreachconfidential.aspx">imposed 22 penalties last year alone</a> &mdash; and another eight in the first two months of this year.</p>
<p>The federal Office for Civil Rights has clear authority to audit health care organizations to ensure they are protecting patient records, as well as to impose huge fines &mdash; <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2013pres/01/20130117b.html">up to $1.5 million per violation</a>. Yet experts on protecting health data have noted with chagrin how rarely the agency uses its power.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s disappointing and underwhelming,&rdquo; said Bob Chaput, founder and chief executive of Clearwater Compliance, which helps health care organizations create programs to protect sensitive information. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re not doing as much as they could or should.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The Office for Civil Rights declined an interview request from ProPublica, but said in a statement that it &ldquo;aggressively&rdquo; identifies and investigates &ldquo;high-impact cases that send strong enforcement messages about important compliance issues.&rdquo; The agency looks into all large data breaches, a spokeswoman wrote in an email, and the cases resulting in financial penalties &ldquo;have involved systemic and/or long-standing&rdquo; concerns.</p>
<p>The agency&rsquo;s stiffest sanction to date came last May, when it hit <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2014pres/05/20140507b.html">New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University with fines totaling $4.8 million</a> for failing to secure the electronic health records of 6,800 people. A physician had tried to remove his personal computer server from a shared network, causing patient records, including patient status, vital signs, medications and lab results, to be found on Web search engines. The problem surfaced when a person found a deceased partner&rsquo;s personal health information online.</p>
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<h2 class="pp-int-hed">
Help Us Investigate</h2>
<p>What has been your experience with patient privacy? Do you think your medical information was shared by your doctor or health-care provider? Do you think it was involved in a breach? <a href="http://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/item/has-your-medical-privacy-been-compromised">Tell us your story</a>.</p>
</div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>The federal government has played a growing role in health privacy and security since the passage of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, in 1996. The law mandated standards for the use and dissemination of health care information and for how organizations protect electronic medical records.</p>
<p>In 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, known as the HITECH Act, went a step further. It required that organizations publicly report breaches involving at least 500 patients, increased how much HHS could fine organizations that violate patient privacy and record security, mandated that HHS conduct audits, and extended the rules to third parties that work with health care organizations.</p>
<p>But since then, even HHS&rsquo; inspector general has been critical of the way in which the Office for Civil Rights has used its authority. In November 2013, <a href="https://oig.hhs.gov/oas/reports/region4/41105025.pdf">the inspector general faulted the agency</a> for not performing audits mandated by the HITECH Act.</p>
<p>A first, pilot set of audits, conducted in 2011 and 2012, <a href="http://www.hcca-info.org/Portals/0/PDFs/Resources/Conference_Handouts/Compliance_Institute/2013/Tuesday/500/504print2.pdf">showed that 102 of the 115 organizations reviewed had at least some problems</a> with security or weren&rsquo;t following rules to safeguard patient privacy. A larger follow-up round of audits is only now getting underway, experts say.</p>
<p>Consultants and experts in the field say the civil rights office has not fully explained the delays. Rodriguez, its former director, left last summer to head the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. A new director has since taken the reins.</p>
<p>Some industry veterans say the Office for Civil Rights is trying to strike a balance between working with organizations to improve their security and punishing truly egregious lapses. Health providers often agree to make voluntary changes even if they&rsquo;re not fined, the agency has said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve come a long way since HIPAA first came out,&rdquo; said Angela Rose, director of health information management practice excellence at the American Health Information Management Association, an industry trade group. &ldquo;In the coming years, it will get better. It will get more strict.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What you don&rsquo;t want [the Office for Civil Rights] to become is somebody like your parking enforcement where they&rsquo;re funding themselves by issuing tickets or fines to everybody who has the smallest infractions,&rdquo; said Joy Pritts, who until last year served as chief privacy officer for the federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.</p>
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<div class="pp-interactive" id="money-by-category">
<h2 class="pp-int-hed">
Large Health-Care Data Breaches On The Rise</h2>
<p class="pp-int-dek">The number of large breaches (affecting at least 500 people) reported by health-care organizations to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.</p>
<div class="container">
<div class="bar cf">
<div class="barlabel">
2009</div>
<div class="barcontainer">
<div class="actual-bar" style="width:16px;">
&nbsp;</div>
</div>
<div class="number outer">
18 breaches reported</div>
</div>
<div class="bar cf">
<div class="barlabel">
2010</div>
<div class="barcontainer">
<div class="actual-bar" style="width:174px;">
&nbsp;</div>
<div class="number">
197</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="bar cf">
<div class="barlabel">
2011</div>
<div class="barcontainer">
<div class="actual-bar" style="width:162px;">
&nbsp;</div>
<div class="number">
192</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="bar cf">
<div class="barlabel">
2012</div>
<div class="barcontainer">
<div class="actual-bar" style="width:162px;">
&nbsp;</div>
<div class="number">
192</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="bar cf">
<div class="barlabel">
2013</div>
<div class="barcontainer">
<div class="actual-bar" style="width:219px;">
&nbsp;</div>
<div class="number">
249</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="bar cf">
<div class="barlabel">
2014</div>
<div class="barcontainer">
<div class="actual-bar" style="width:245px;">
&nbsp;</div>
<div class="number">
278</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="bar cf">
<div class="barlabel">
2015</div>
<div class="barcontainer">
<div class="actual-bar" style="width:14px;">
&nbsp;</div>
</div>
<div class="number outer">
16</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="pp-interactive-source">Source: <a href="https://ocrportal.hhs.gov/ocr/breach/breach_report.jsf">U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights</a>, Data Accessed on Feb. 25, 2015. Credit: Sisi Wei and Charles Ornstein/ProPublica</p>
</div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Data security experts also say the Office for Civil Rights simply does not have the resources to handle its oversight responsibilities. While it can keep whatever fines it imposes to use for enforcement, <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/budget/fy2016/fy-2016-budget-in-brief.pdf">it has fewer than 200 employees and a budget of just $39 million</a>. Its duties, by comparison, are vast: Each year, it handles over 4,000 discrimination complaints, reviews 2,500 Medicare provider applicants to see if they are complying with federal civil rights requirements, and resolves more than 15,000 complaints of alleged HIPAA violations. The president is seeking a budget increase for the agency next year.</p>
<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re swamped,&rdquo; said Dan Berger, chief executive of Redspin, an IT security company that issues an annual report on trends in large data breaches.</p>
<p>The number of large data breaches continues to increase. Last year, 278 were reported, according to federal data, up from under 200 per year from 2010 to 2012. Since the Office for Civil Rights reviews all of them, as well as some smaller ones and other complaints, years can pass before cases are closed.</p>
<p>It took five years, for instance, for the office to <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2014pres/06/20140623a.html">impose an $800,000 fine against Parkview Health System</a> for an incident in which 71 cardboard boxes of medical records for 5,000 to 8,000 patients were left unattended in the driveway of a physician&rsquo;s home. That incident was not reported as a large data breach but instead came in as a complaint from the physician.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I think the office is overwhelmed with the volume that&rsquo;s coming in and that&rsquo;s in part leading to long delays in resolving some of these cases,&rdquo; said Adam Greene, a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine, a law firm in Washington D.C., and a former OCR official.</p>
<p>Some organizations currently under review by HHS say they don&rsquo;t know the status of their cases. In 2012, <a href="http://www.health.utah.gov/databreach/index.html">the state of Utah disclosed that hackers gained access</a> to a server that stores data on Medicaid and children&rsquo;s health insurance claims. Social Security numbers of 280,000 people and less-sensitive information on 500,000 others were accessed.</p>
<p>Since then, the state health department has had three official interactions with the Office for Civil Rights, the last coming in May 2014. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to tell where we are in the process,&rdquo; said Tom Hudachko, an agency spokesman. &ldquo;We thought there would have been resolution by this point.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Utah&rsquo;s Department of Technology Services, which handles all tech needs for the state, has increased security since the breach, hiring a new chief information security officer, received additional funding from the legislature, increased network monitoring to 24 hours a day, and arranged for an outside security assessment every two years.</p>
<p>The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, <a href="http://dphhs.mt.gov/helpline/commonquestions">which reported a hacking incident last year that affected more than 1 million people</a>, also said HHS&rsquo; investigation is ongoing.</p>
<p>Some security experts say that the government needs to use its authority to impose fines to send a message. Bruce Schneier, a computer security expert and blogger, compared the situation to environmental pollution.</p>
<p>&ldquo;If the cost of polluting is zero, companies will pollute. How would a rational company not do that?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If your CEO said we&rsquo;re going to spend four times as much money not to pollute, he would be fired. What you need is to make security rational.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="note related-note"><p><em>Help us investigate patient privacy by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/item/has-your-medical-privacy-been-compromised">sharing your story</a>. Also <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/when-a-patients-death-is-broadcast-without-permission">read our story</a> about how a real-life medical show filmed a man&#8217;s death without his permission.</em></p></p><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/mDu1KX2qaCg" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-02-27T11:15:13-05:00http://www.propublica.org/article/fines-remain-rare-even-as-health-data-breaches-multiply/Net Neutrality May Face an Uphill Battle If History Tells Us Anythinghttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/sAJacaZwhgg/
http://www.propublica.org/article/net-neutrality-may-face-an-uphill-battle-if-history-tells-us-anything/#27073<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/leticia_miranda/">Leticia Miranda</a>
</p>
<p>The Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote on a <a href="http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0204/DOC-331869A1.pdf">proposal</a> today that effectively bars Internet companies from prioritizing some Internet traffic over others.As John Oliver famously <a href="http://rt.com/usa/163408-fcc-john-oliver-net/">explained</a> &#8220;ending net neutrality would allow big companies to buy their way into the fast lane, leaving everyone else in the slow lane.&#8221; </p>
<p>The FCC&#8217;s proposal faces plenty of opposition from <a href="http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/fcc/title-ii-closing-arguments/">telecom companies</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/02/24/thune-says-he-isnt-throwing-in-the-towel-on-net-neutrality-legislation/">others</a>, but it&#8217;s just the latest round in a long fight. Here is a brief history of attempts to enact net neutrality and the often successful push against it. </p>
<h2>The FCC votes to deregulate cable Internet services.</h2>
<p>March 2002: The FCC, under the Bush administration and Republican Chairman Michael Powell, <a href="http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/nrcb0201.html">declares</a> that cable modem services are &#8220;not subject to common carrier regulation,&#8221; meaning they aren&#8217;t bound by standards for nondiscrimination in service. Instead, cable Internet services fall under a separate light regulatory regime that gives the commission limited enforcement power. </p>
<h2>Tim Wu coins the phrase &#8220;net neutrality.&#8221;</h2>
<p>Fall 2003: Tim Wu, then an associate professor at the University of Virginia Law School, first coins the term &#8220;net neutrality&#8221; in a <a href="http://www.jthtl.org/content/articles/V2I1/JTHTLv2i1_Wu.PDF">paper</a> for the Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law. He defines net neutrality to mean an Internet &#8220;that does not favor one application&#8230;over others.&#8221;</p>
<h2>The FCC adopts a toothless net neutrality-like policy statement.</h2>
<p>August 2005: The FCC <a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-260435A1.pdf">adopts</a> a <a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-05-151A1.pdf">policy statement</a> to &#8220;preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of public Internet,&#8221; which focuses on protecting consumer access to content online and competition among Internet service companies. The statement has no power of enforcement. </p>
<h2>The first net neutrality bill is introduced in Congress. It dies.</h2>
<p>May 2006: Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., introduces a <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr5273">net neutrality bill</a> that would keep Internet service companies from blocking, degrading or interfering with users&#8217; access to their services. But the bill <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr5273">stalled</a> in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and never came to a vote.</p>
<h2>The FCC tells Comcast to stop slowing down access to BitTorrent.</h2>
<p>August 2008: The FCC, under Republican Chairman Kevin Martin, <a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-284286A1.pdf">orders</a> Comcast to stop slowing down user access to BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer sharing network often used to share music and videos. </p>
<h2>Comcast sues the FCC, and wins. </h2>
<p>September 2008 &#8212; April 2010: Comcast voluntary agrees to stop slowing down BitTorrent traffic. But it takes the FCC to court anyway, arguing that the agency is operating outside its authority. Specifically, the company points out that the FCC&#8217;s 2005 policy statement on neutrality doesn&#8217;t have the force of law. </p>
<h2>The FCC writes real rules on net neutrality. </h2>
<p>December 2010: Democratic FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski writes an <a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-10-201A1_Rcd.pdf">order</a> to impose net neutrality rules. Unlike the FCC&#8217;s 2005 policy statement, this new order is a real rule, not just a policy statement. </p>
<h2>Except Verizon sues the FCC, saying it has no authority to enforce the rules, and wins.</h2>
<p>September 2011 &#8212; January 2014: The District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals <a href="http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/3AF8B4D938CDEEA685257C6000532062/$file/11-1355-1474943.pdf">rules</a> the Federal Communications Commission can&#8217;t enforce net neutrality rules because broadband Internet services don&#8217;t fall under its regulatory authority.</p>
<h2>Senator introduces net neutrality bill that would ban the FCC from enforcement.</h2>
<p>January 2015: Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., introduces a <a href="http://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&amp;File_id=7a90bcad-41c9-4f11-b341-9e4c14dac91c">net neutrality bill</a> as a discussion draft that would ban Internet service companies from blocking or degrading services or access to certain content, but would also strip the FCC of authority to enforce any of these rules.</p>
<h2>The FCC chairman proposes to reclassify broadband Internet services and enforce net neutrality.</h2>
<p>February 2015: Democratic Chairman Tom Wheeler introduces the current net neutrality proposal. Internet service companies such as AT&amp;T and Comcast would be banned from offering paid prioritization to content providers such as Amazon for faster access. But the proposal would also allow Internet service companies to prevent other companies from using their wires to connect homes to the Internet.</p>
<h2>The FCC is expected to vote on rules today.</h2>
<p>Feb. 26, 2015: The FCC is <a href="http://www.fcc.gov/events/open-commission-meeting-february-2015">scheduled</a> to vote on the proposed rules this morning. The rules are expected to pass in a 3&#8211;2 decision with the two Republican commissioners dissenting. </p>
<h2>This almost certainly will result in another fight. </h2>
<p>The details of the new rules won&#8217;t be made public until after the vote. Experts <a href="http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/fcc/title-ii-closing-arguments/">expect</a> challenges to the rules as soon as they are published. Michael Powell, a former FCC Chairman and current president and CEO of the National Cable &amp; Telecommunications Association, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/102450337">told</a> CNBC it could take &#8220;at least two and up to five years before the rules are fully and finally settled." </p> <p class="note related-note"><p><em><strong>Related coverage: </strong><a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/obama-wants-you-to-have-cheap-fast-internet-but-many-cities-arent-allowed-t">Read about state laws</a> that make it difficult for cities to provide cheap, fast Internet through municipal broadband networks.</em></p></p><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/sAJacaZwhgg" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-02-26T07:00:43-05:00http://www.propublica.org/article/net-neutrality-may-face-an-uphill-battle-if-history-tells-us-anything/New York City Lays Out Limits on Restraints And Suspensionshttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/oV-7-lT4rDI/
http://www.propublica.org/article/new-york-city-lays-out-limits-on-restraints-and-suspensions/#27067<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/annie_waldman/">Annie Waldman</a>
</p>
<p>New York City educators will face new restrictions on handcuffing students or suspending them from school, as part of <a href="http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/mediarelations/NewsandSpeeches/2014-2015/City+Announces+School+Climate+Reforms.htm">regulations</a> proposed earlier this month by the city&#8217;s education department. If the proposals are adopted as expected, schools will also have to begin tracking the number of times students are tied down or otherwise restrained.</p>
<p>Last year, an investigation by ProPublica and NPR showed that <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/schools-restraints-seclusions">restraints are frequently used</a> in schools across the country. Hundreds of students are injured each year. Our reporting also found that many of the nation&#8217;s largest school districts, including New York City, <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/los-angeles-and-new-york-pin-down-school-kids-and-then-say-it-never-happene">do not report the number</a> of restraints to authorities despite being required to do so by the federal government. Los Angeles and Chicago, the country&#8217;s second and third largest school districts, also reported zero restraints.</p>
<p>New York City&#8217;s new regulations would require school safety agents to file monthly reports with the mayor&#8217;s office on the use of restraints. It would also aim to reduce schools&#8217; reliance on 911 calls to manage disruptive students. The city&#8217;s education department plans to give de-escalation training to more than 1,500 educators across the city.</p>
<p>&#8220;We need to try to establish a system that both improves safety for teachers and kids in schools, and increases decency and learning,&#8221; Vincent Schiraldi, senior advisor to the Mayor&#8217;s Office of Criminal Justice, told ProPublica. </p>
<p>Restraint practices would change, as well. The city&#8217;s specialized school safety agents and police officers would no longer be able to restrain students under 12 in handcuffs, except as a last resort. For children of all ages, school security agents will not use any restraining device when alternatives are sufficient.</p>
<p>New York&#8217;s reforms are part of a wider nationwide move to decrease the use of restraint in public schools. Over the past several months, a number of states have proposed changes to their schools&#8217; discipline policies. </p>
<p>In late 2014, <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/massachusetts-tightens-rules-on-restraining-secluding-students">Massachusetts set new limits</a> on the use of restraint and seclusion in schools. By the end of this year, state educators will be prohibited from holding students facedown on the ground in all but the rarest instances and they will need permission from principals to give students &#8220;time-outs&#8221; that are longer than 30 minutes.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/virginia-passes-bill-to-rein-in-restraints-of-school-kids">Virginia legislators also approved a bill</a> earlier this year that will require state leaders to set limits on the use of restraint and isolation in public schools. If approved by Virginia&#8217;s governor, the state education board will be required to enact new regulations that align with the federal guidelines on these behavioral interventions.</p>
<p>Aside from restraints, New York City&#8217;s proposed code would also reform suspension policies, requiring schools to get permission from a central office before suspending a kid for &#8220;defying authority.&#8221; During the 2013 school year, <a href="http://www.nyclu.org/files/ssa_suspension_factsheet_2013-2014_edit.pdf">more than 8,800 kids</a> were reportedly suspended for defying authority, which can include talking back to a teacher or missing several days of class.</p>
<p>The city has committed over $5 million dollars to support the reforms. The Department of Education expects the changes to go into effect soon after a public hearing in early March. </p>
<p>Education attorney Nelson Mar of Legal Services NYC&#8211;Bronx told ProPublica that while he applauded the reforms, their value will depend on how they are implemented. </p>
<p>&#8220;You can put a lot of good things on paper but at the end of the day, if there are no structures put in place to ensure compliance or enforcement, it could be meaningless,&#8221; said Mar.</p> <p class="note related-note"><p><em><strong>Related stories:</strong> For more, read our investigation into the <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/schools-restraints-seclusions/">widespread use of restraints</a> at public schools across the country. And meet the players <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/meet-the-groups-fighting-against-limits-on-restraining-school-kids/">fighting to keep the tactics legal</a>.</em></p></p><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/oV-7-lT4rDI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-02-25T08:00:06-05:00http://www.propublica.org/article/new-york-city-lays-out-limits-on-restraints-and-suspensions/Newly Discovered Evidence is Latest Surprise in Patz Casehttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/S7DD7sHlVOA/
http://www.propublica.org/article/newly-discovered-evidence-is-latest-surprise-in-patz-case/#27068<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/joe_sexton/">Joe Sexton</a>
</p>
<p>From the moment Pedro Hernandez was indicted for the murder of Etan Patz, both prosecutors and defense lawyers recognized they faced a formidable task: locating, deciphering and sharing a vast array of information and evidence collected over the decades since Patz, then a 6-year-old boy on his way to school, disappeared in 1979. There were police reports, FBI files, former suspects, witness statements. SoHo, the neighborhood where the boy vanished, had been remade. The lead investigator had died. Residents had moved.</p>
<p>It took close to two and a half years, but at last, earlier this year, both sides declared themselves ready for trial. And then came word, weeks into the trial, that the 36-month effort to recover evidence had been incomplete. Three boxes of Patz investigative material turned up in a Harlem storage room, including one box that both sides acknowledged might include detailed material relating to a convicted pedophile who had once been the top suspect in the case.</p>
<p>In recent days, then, prosecutors were working to get the new material copied and turned over to the defense. The defense was talking about the possibility of a mistrial.</p>
<p>The development was the latest improbable twist in a missing child case that once captivated the country. Patz had been on his way to school on a day in May 1979, by himself for the first time. He never turned up at school. A giant manhunt was undertaken. Parents across the country debated how to keep their children safe. People falsely claiming to be the boy turned up over the years; the body was never found. A decade ago, the boy&#8217;s parents had their son formally declared dead. They later won a civil wrongful death judgment against the longtime chief suspect: Jose Ramos, a pedophile who had once had a relationship with Patz&#8217;s babysitter, and who, according to one prosecutor, had all but confessed to killing the boy.</p>
<p>But Ramos is not the man currently on trial. In May 2012, a former bodega clerk from the Patzs&#8217; SoHo neighborhood out of the blue confessed to strangling the boy in the bodega basement and stashing the body in a box he later placed on a nearby street. The city was shocked. The boy&#8217;s parents were cautious. Lawyers for the former clerk, Pedro Hernandez, said the confession was a mentally ill man&#8217;s fantasy and the fruit of manipulative work by detectives eager to solve one of New York&#8217;s enduring mysteries.</p>
<p>When Hernandez&#8217;s trial began this January, defense lawyer Harvey Fishbein made clear he intended to argue that Ramos was the more likely killer. And he was going to rely on the reams of material that had been generated over the years that some investigators had once hoped would be used against Ramos: his own statements; his alleged access to the family through the babysitter; the accounts of two informants who had shared a prison cell with Ramos over the years and allegedly drawn him out on the Patz case.</p>
<p>Now, with the discovery in Harlem, Fishbein may have access to additional material to aid in his defense. On Monday, when news of the discovery became public, Fishbein said it was unclear whether he&#8217;d move for a mistrial, but he and his team suggested there could be important information in the boxes. They indicated that witnesses who have already testified may have to be recalled, and that new possible witnesses might be required to appear.</p>
<p>&#8220;At a minimum, it shows the historical file is incomplete,&#8221; Fishbein told reporters on Monday.</p>
<p>Prosecutors are obligated to turn over any material in their possession that might have a material impact on the case, even information that may be beneficial to the defense. If they fail to, intentionally or as the result of an honest mistake, a judge may rule that the chance at a fully fair trial has been lost.</p>
<p>Bennett Gershman, a professor at Pace Law School, said it was unusual but not unprecedented for such discoveries to happen during trial. He said the trial judge, Maxwell Wiley, bears responsibility for sorting out the significance of the new material. He may decide that both sides can work through the material and the trial can proceed. On Tuesday, both sides were back in court, going forward.</p>
<p>But the judge could decide a mistrial might be warranted &#8211; even if the defense objects. He could determine that any need to re-question witnesses and the like would prove too confusing, even overwhelming for the jury. Such actions are rare and could invite the question of whether Hernandez could be re-tried at all.</p>
<p>&#8220;No one is really faulting anyone,&#8221; Gershman said. &#8220;It could be much ado about nothing. The key issue is carefully going through all the material.&#8221; Prosecutors said the boxes were discovered by the New York Police Department while cleaning out a storage space on Frederick Douglass Boulevard. Among their contents:</p>
<p>A police interview of Ramos; index cards for everyone interviewed in the case; a card for every psychic used in the case; alleged sightings of Patz; letters to the Patz family that they gave police over the years, including reports of sightings and notes of condolence; the debriefings of an informant in the case, and case notes from a detective who interviewed residents of Ramos&#8217;s 1979 Manhattan residence.</p>
<p>Prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney&#8217;s office in court on Tuesday said the lost boxes represented no bad faith effort to conceal anything.</p>
<p>A defense lawyer, Alice Fontier, said the material amounted to thousands of pages that they had yet to fully examine. She also said that the notes found of the detective &#8211; he had lived in Ramos&#8217;s building as a child and years later interviewed tenants who had once been his neighbors &#8211; indicated numerous people had recalled seeing Patz in the building with Ramos and his girlfriend.</p> <p class="note related-note"><p><em><strong>Related coverage: </strong> For more about the disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz, <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/missing-a-boy-and-the-evidence-against-his-accused-killer">read the story ProPublica produced with WNYC in 2013</a> and <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/confession-of-etan-patzs-accused-killer-finally-aired-in-court">our story about Hernandez's confession</a>.</em></p></p><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/S7DD7sHlVOA" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-02-24T14:26:16-05:00http://www.propublica.org/article/newly-discovered-evidence-is-latest-surprise-in-patz-case/Podcast: When Those We Report On Complainhttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/u2Gq7p1Gy0k/
http://www.propublica.org/podcast/item/podcast-when-sources-complain/#27065<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/nicole_collins/">Nicole Collins Bronzan</a>
</p>
<style type="text/css">
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<p>Any good reporter takes requests for corrections very seriously, and the stakes are especially high for investigative journalists like ProPublica&#8217;s <a href="https://twitter.com/JustinElliott">Justin Elliott</a>.
</p>
<p>
So when he and his reporting partners, <a href="https://twitter.com/eisingerj">Jesse Eisinger</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/LauraSullivaNPR">NPR&#8217;s Laura Sullivan</a>, <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/red-cross-demands-corrections-to-our-coverage-our-response">received a lengthy list of complaints</a> from the Red Cross about our past coverage of the charity, they checked them out, he tells ProPublica Assistant Managing Editor <a href="https://twitter.com/ericuman">Eric Umansky</a> in this week&#8217;s podcast.
</p>
<p>
In the end, the reporters stood by their &#8220;scrupulously fair&#8221; work &#8211; which was itself the product of much back and forth with the Red Cross before publication last year.
</p>
<p>
Umansky says they were well-served by employing the &#8220;no-surprises school of journalism,&#8221; giving a shout-out to <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=mark%20schoofs&src=typd">Mark Schoofs</a>, a former ProPublica editor now at Buzzfeed. &#8220;You can cause sources to be enraged, to be sad,&#8221; Umansky says, but &#8220;they should never be surprised by what you publish.&#8221;
<p>
<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/192623190&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false"></iframe>
</p>
<p>
&#8220;That&#8217;s not always a fun or comfortable thing to do,&#8221; he continues, &#8220;but it is both the right thing to do and almost inevitably, in my experience, has been helpful in terms of the story.&#8221;
</p>
<p>
Case in point: During the original reporting, the Red Cross provided evidence to rebut certain claims made by other sources, Elliott says, and the stories reflected that.
</p>
<p>
Fast-forward to the current complaints, which the reporters and editors received months after the original stories and determined were unfounded. In some cases, they found, the Red Cross' responses were misleading or simply incorrect. &#8220;They said we had failed to include a quote about fruitful cooperation between the Red Cross and Occupy Sandy,&#8221; Elliott says, &#8220;and one of the quotes that they say we had failed to include is actually in fact in the story.&#8221;
</p>
<p>
In the end, the time and effort of publishing the complaints and our responses were worth it, Umansky says: &#8220;Simply put, some of their mischaracterizations were themselves newsworthy -- worthy of letting readers know, this is the interaction that we&#8217;ve had.&#8221;
</p>
<p>
Still, it&#8217;s a decision that must be made case by case.
</p>
<p>
Elliott recalls an interaction with Donald Trump during his time writing for Salon.com several years ago. In <a href="http://www.salon.com/2011/04/19/trump_financial_disclosure_timeline/">one story</a>, he posited that Trump was merely &#8220;riding this wave of free publicity&#8221; in his latest presidential run and would drop out of the race before certain financial disclosure requirements kicked in. That way, he could avoid answering the recurring questions: &#8220;How rich is he really, what are his real assets,&#8221; Elliott says. &#8220;He keeps that very close to the vest.&#8221;
</p>
<p>
Afterward, he got <a href="http://www.salon.com/2011/04/22/donald_trump_writes_to_salon/">a personal response</a> from Trump &#8211; well, sort of. (And yes, the Donald did drop out.) Hear all about it on <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=352685624">iTunes</a>, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/propublica">SoundCloud and <a href="http://stitcher.com/s/profile.php?fid=20308">Stitcher</a>, or read our <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/red-cross-demands-corrections-to-our-coverage-our-response">point-by-point refutation</a> of the Red Cross&#8217;s claims.</p><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/u2Gq7p1Gy0k" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-02-23T12:10:27-05:00http://www.propublica.org/podcast/item/podcast-when-sources-complain/Police Brutality from Chicago to Gitmo and More in MuckReads Weeklyhttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/gdyVxZmGc1A/
http://www.propublica.org/article/police-brutality-from-chicago-to-gitmo-and-more-in-muckreads-weekly/#27062<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/amanda_zamora/" title="View Amanda Zamora's other articles">Amanda Zamora</a>
and <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/terry_parris/" title="View Terry Parris Jr.'s other articles">Terry Parris Jr.</a></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/18/american-police-brutality-chicago-guantanamo">&quot;Illegal ... immoral ... ineffective ... unconstitutional.&quot;</a> </strong>That is how the deputy commander of a now-defunct Guantanamo task force described the interrogation tactics of Richard Zuley, a Navy reserve lieutenant who was known for extracting intelligence from his subjects through prolonged shackling, threats against family members and sleep deprivation. The Guardian traced some of Zuley&#39;s methods at Gitmo to the police precincts of Chicago, where his detective work helped put at least one innocent man in prison and has generated serious allegations of abuse. Zuley declined to comment. <span style="background-color:#fcfed1;"><em>&mdash;&nbsp;The Guardian via <a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=attackerman&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">@attackerman </a><a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=guardianus&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">@guardianus</a></em></span></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=guardianus&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0"> </a></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=guardianus&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0"><strong> </strong></a><strong><a href="http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/gasping-for-action-b99440601z1-291548941.html">It&#39;s called popcorn lung.</a></strong>&nbsp;Diacetyl &mdash; used to flavor items like candy, coffee, chips and increasingly popular e-cigarettes &mdash;&nbsp;has been linked to hundreds of injuries and at least five deaths among workers in popcorn factories and flavoring companies over the last 15 years. When inhaled in large, concentrated amounts, it can obliterate your lungs, experts say. Researchers and regulators have known about the harmful affects of the chemical for years, but the&nbsp;National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety has issued&nbsp;nothing more than an advisory bulletin to manufacturers on how to reduce exposure. And while most studies focus on the nicotine risks of e-cigarettes, one study found nearly 70% of flavored &quot;smoke juice&quot; contained diacetyl. &quot;These are avoidable risks,&quot; said one researcher. <span style="background-color:#fcfed1;"><em>&nbsp;&mdash; The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via <a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=john_diedrich&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">@john_diedrich</a></em></span></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=john_diedrich&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0"> </a></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=john_diedrich&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0"><strong> </strong></a><strong><a href="http://money.cnn.com/interactive/pf/debt-collector/government-agencies/index.html">Surprise? &quot;Consumer protection rules rarely apply to government debts.&quot;</a></strong> Government agencies are outsourcing debt collection to private firms for things like unpaid taxes, parking tickets and traffic tolls. Although these are government debts, consumer protection laws usually don&#39;t bind the private firms collecting against them. One of those firms is Linebarger Goggan Blair &amp; Sampson, which &quot;has gone so far as to argue it has immunity because it is an extension of the government,&quot; CNN Money reports. These firms have &quot;the power to threaten debtors with the suspension of their driver&#39;s license, garnishment of their wages, foreclosure and arrest to get them to pay up.&quot; They are also able to charge debtors directly, while consumer creditors collect fees from the debt itself.&nbsp;<span style="background-color:#fcfed1;"><em>&mdash; CNN Money via <a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=MarkObbie&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">@MarkObbie</a></em></span></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=MarkObbie&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0"> </a></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=MarkObbie&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0"><strong> </strong></a><strong><a href="http://www.revealnews.org/article/jehovahs-witnesses-use-1st-amendment-to-hide-child-sex-abuse-claims/">The &#39;Watchtower&#39; will decide which abusers are predators.</a></strong> Internal documents portray a religious hierarchy more concerned with protecting its members from criminal prosecution than from sexual abuse. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, which governs Jehovah&#39;s Witnesses around the world, has repeatedly instructed church elders to handle allegations of sexual abuse against children in secret, and to &quot;avoid unnecessary entanglement with secular authorities who may be conducting a criminal investigation.&quot; In a written statement, church officials told Reveal they &quot;continue to educate parents and provide them with valuable tools to help them educate and protect their children.&quot; &nbsp;<span style="background-color:#fcfed1;"><em>&mdash;&nbsp;Reveal via <a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=Rachael_Bale&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">@Rachael_Bale</a></em></span></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=Rachael_Bale&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0"> </a></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=Rachael_Bale&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0"><strong> </strong></a><strong><a href="http://www.northjersey.com/news/special-report-in-heroin-s-grip-1.1271593">Heroin: a deadly twist to urban decay.</a></strong> Wealthy suburbs are feeding the heroin trade in one old, industrial New Jersey town, contributing to a rise in violence as police resources (and overall employment) have declined, The (Bergen) Record reports. &quot;To me, it&#39;s like a state of emergency,&quot; said one Bergen County police lieutenant, who estimated 300 people travel into Paterson every day for heroin. Blight contributes to the problem, but city officials are ill-equipped to combat it: record keeping is poor, staffs are small and budgets are tight. &quot;As a result, millions in property taxes and sewer bills routinely go unpaid.&quot; <span style="background-color:#fcfed1;"><em>&mdash;&nbsp;The Record via <a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=terryparrisjr&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">@terryparrisjr</a></em></span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/aramroston/fostering-profits#.uyJ0GyVBr"><strong>Fostering profit.</strong></a> BuzzFeed News investigates the widespread abuse of children and teenagers under the care of National Mentor Holdings, a for-profit company that has &ldquo;turned the field of foster care into a cash cow.&rdquo; Regulators across several states have reported scores of instances of abuse or neglect, and at least six children have died in Mentor homes in recent years, including a 2-year-old in Texas &ldquo;whose foster mother swung her body into the ground like an ax.&rdquo; A Mentor executive told BuzzFeed the company has provided excellent care for &ldquo;literally thousands of vulnerable children.&rdquo; But former employees suggest a drive for profits has led to shortcuts in care. <span style="background-color:#fcfed1;"><em>&mdash; BuzzFeed News via <a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=KendallTTaggart&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">@KendallTTaggart</a></em></span></p>
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/gdyVxZmGc1A" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-02-20T16:00:53-05:00http://www.propublica.org/article/police-brutality-from-chicago-to-gitmo-and-more-in-muckreads-weekly/When a Wildlife Rehab Center Regulates Charter Schools: Inside the Wild World of Charter Regulationhttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/DVnLxZhRDB4/
http://www.propublica.org/article/inside-the-wild-world-of-charter-regulation/#27061<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/marian_wang/">Marian Wang</a>
</p>
<p><em><strong>Update, Feb. 24, 2015: </strong>Here's a <a href="https://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1676093-acnw-charter-school-response.html">further response</a> from the Audubon Center of the North Woods.</em></p>
<p>Nestled in the woods of central Minnesota, near a large lake, is a nature sanctuary called the Audubon Center of the North Woods. The nonprofit rehabilitates birds. It hosts retreats and conferences. It&#8217;s home to a North American porcupine <a href="http://audubon-center.org/portfolio-item/spike/">named Spike</a> as well as several birds of prey, frogs, and snakes used to educate the center&#8217;s visitors.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s also Minnesota&#8217;s largest regulator of charter schools, overseeing 32 of them. </p>
<p>Charter schools are taxpayer-funded, privately run schools freed from many of the rules that apply to traditional public schools. What&#8217;s less widely understood is that there are few hard-and-fast rules for how the regulators charged with overseeing charter schools are supposed to do the job. Many are making it up as they go along. </p>
<p>Known as &#8220;authorizers,&#8221; charter regulators have the power to decide which charter schools should be allowed to open and which are performing so badly they ought to close. They&#8217;re supposed to vet charter schools, making sure the schools are giving kids a good education and spending public money responsibly. </p>
<p>But many of these gatekeepers are woefully inexperienced, under-resourced, confused about their mission or even compromised by conflicts of interest. And while some charter schools are overseen by state education agencies or school districts, others are regulated by entities for which overseeing charters is a side job, such as private colleges and nonprofits like the Audubon wildlife rehabilitation center.</p>
<p>One result of the regulatory mishmash: Bad schools have been allowed to stay open and evade accountability. </p>
<p>&#8220;Almost everything you see come up as charter school problems, if you scratch past the surface, the real problem is bad authorizing,&#8221; said John Charlton, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Education. </p>
<p>In 2010, an investigation by the Philadelphia Controller&#8217;s Office found lavish executive salaries, conflicts of interest and other problems at more than a dozen charter schools, and it faulted the authorizer &#8211; the School District of Philadelphia&#8217;s charter school office &#8211; for &#8220;<a href="http://articles.philly.com/2010-04-09/news/25212620_1_charter-schools-charter-office-minimal-oversight">complete and total failure</a>&#8221; to monitor schools. In 2013, more than a dozen Ohio charter schools that had gained approval from various authorizers received state funding and then either collapsed in short order or never opened at all. </p>
<p>&#8220;Considerable state funds were lost and many lives impacted because of these failures,&#8221; the Ohio Department of Education <a href="http://education.ohio.gov/getattachment/Topics/School-Choice/Community-Schools/News/Communication-to-Authorizers/Authorizer-Communication-Letter-4-26-14.pdf.aspx">wrote</a> in a scathing letter last year to Ohio&#8217;s charter-school regulators. The agency wrote that some authorizers &#8220;lacked not only the appropriate processes, but more importantly, the commitment of mission, expertise and resources needed to be effective.&#8221; </p>
<p>Aside from such dramatic implosions, it&#8217;s hard to tell how many authorizers are doing at this important public function. They&#8217;re generally not required to say much about the details of their decision-making. </p>
<p>Take Minnesota&#8217;s Audubon Center. As a group, the schools overseen by the center <a href="http://rc.education.state.mn.us/">fall below</a> the state average on test scores. The group has several persistently low performers, acknowledged David Greenberg, Audubon&#8217;s Director of Charter School Authorizing, and a few years back, made the tough call to close one. But test scores offer a limited window into how a regulator is performing. The center works with several schools serving high-need students in Minneapolis, and high-need students tend to have lower test scores. A full picture requires a more holistic evaluation &#8211; one that the Minnesota Department of Education is just starting this year. </p>
<p>In the early years of the charter movement, charter supporters focused on creating more authorizers, in order to spur the creation of more schools. That&#8217;s still true in some states, where charters are taking off. But as the movement has matured, there&#8217;s been a realization that &#8220;having too many authorizers undercuts quality,&#8221; in the <a href="http://www.qualitycharters.org/assets/files/images/stories/One_Million_Lives/Policy_Agenda_One_Pager.pdf?q=images/stories/One_Million_Lives/Policy_Agenda_One_Pager.pdf">words</a> of the National Association for Charter School Authorizers, a trade group for charter regulators. NACSA has worked to educate states and individual authorizers on what good oversight looks like, while promoting measures such as &#8220;<a href="http://www.qualitycharters.org/assets/files/images/Closing_Failing_Schools.pdf">default closure</a>&#8221; to help bypass authorizers that may be reluctant to close chronically underperforming schools. </p>
<p>While there are promising signs, NACSA acknowledges there&#8217;s still a long way to go. &#8220;It feels like whack-a-mole, but in the long term, you&#8217;re getting closer,&#8221; said Alex Medler, the group&#8217;s vice president of policy and advocacy. Even if states have some strong authorizers, weak ones can undermine the whole system, as underperforming schools can find refuge with them. </p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not how many are good, it&#8217;s are there any bad ones left?&#8221; Medler said. &#8220;If you&#8217;re running a bad school, you look for the presence of bad authorizers. You ignore the good authorizer.&#8221;</p>
<p>Consider Indiana, a state that has sought to strengthen charter-school accountability in recent years. On one hand, the Indianapolis Mayor&#8217;s Office is widely regarded as a strong charter-school regulator. The schools it oversees have as a group performed better on state tests than Indianapolis Public Schools<strong>,</strong> and the office has made some tough calls, revoking charters when it sees fit and <a href="http://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2014/08/21/flanner-house-charter-school-cheating-scandal-unfolded/14420871/">flagging suspected cheating</a> at its schools.</p>
<p>On the other hand, there&#8217;s Trine University, a small private college in rural Northeast Indiana and a charter-school regulator that has taken on schools that left other authorizers, in some cases after those regulators had sought to close them. </p>
<p>One of Trine&#8217;s schools is a charter operated by Imagine, a national charter-school operator trailed by a track record of <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/10/12/charters-lease-deals-scrutinized.html">questionable</a> financial dealings at schools in multiple states. In 2006, Imagine had sought approval from the Indianapolis Mayor&#8217;s Office, which roundly rejected those charter applications, noting that &#8220;the evidence regarding the performance of Imagine Schools nationwide is limited and mixed,&#8221; according to internal notes from the mayor&#8217;s office. Staffers also raised concerns about the fees the schools would have to pay to Imagine. </p>
<p>So Imagine tried again with Ball State University, another regulator, got approvals, and began operating several persistently lagging schools until Ball State toughened up and sought to close <a href="http://cms.bsu.edu/news/articles/2013/1/ball-state-takes-action-on-20-charter-schools">seven schools at once</a>, including three Imagine schools. The remaining Imagine school &#8211; which had gotten progressively worse over the years, going from a <a href="http://compass.doe.in.gov/dashboard/reportcard.aspx?type=school&amp;id=5484">C to a D to an F</a> &#8211; then jumped ship to Trine University.</p>
<p>As it so happens, Trine University&#8217;s charter school office is headed by Lindsay Omlor, who prior to this job had spent six years working for Imagine. Asked about Trine&#8217;s decision to take on the Imagine school, Omlor said her office was aware of the school&#8217;s scores and &#8220;together we have developed and implemented a rigorous improvement plan.&#8221; She defended the decision to take on schools that other authorizers were <a href="http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130611/NEWS/130619949">poised</a> to <a href="http://www.careeracademysb.com/news/a-letter-to-parents-from-our-superintendent/">close</a>, saying that authorizing is not &#8220;one size fits all,&#8221; and that schools should &#8220;have the opportunity to pursue an authorizer who may be a better fit with their mission.&#8221; </p>
<p>This type of &#8220;authorizer hopping&#8221; is a big problem, said David Harris, who spent five years as a charter regulator in Indiana and now serves as CEO of The Mind Trust, an education reform group that incubates charter schools. Harris believes the state legislature erred in giving Trine and other little-known private colleges the ability to regulate charter schools. &#8220;They are the weakest link. They&#8217;re keeping schools open that other authorizers are trying to close down. In some cases, I don&#8217;t even think they understand the purpose of authorizing.&#8221;</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not just Trine. In the esoteric world of charter authorizing, there&#8217;s long been confusion and tension over the basic role of authorizers. Are they charter-school watchdogs, or are they there to provide support?</p>
<p>In Ohio, many charter authorizers fall on the &#8220;support&#8221; end of the spectrum. Some go so far that they sell &#8220;support services&#8221; &#8211; back-office services, for instance, or even professional development &#8211; to the very schools they regulate. It&#8217;s a way for these groups to make additional revenue on top of the fees they&#8217;re allowed to charge the schools.</p>
<p>&#8220;It creates a conflict of interest,&#8221; said Terry Ryan, president of the Idaho Charter School Network, who previously worked as an authorizer at The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank in Ohio. &#8220;Authorizers shouldn&#8217;t be doing any of that, because as soon as they do, they&#8217;re compromising their ability to hold schools accountable.&#8221;</p>
<p>Even the lingo around charter-school regulation points to divergent approaches. In most states, groups overseeing charter schools are called &#8220;authorizers&#8221; to convey their decision-making role in approving or closing schools. But in Ohio and other states, they&#8217;re referred to as charter &#8220;sponsors.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Sponsor is too soft, like an advocate,&#8221; said Brandon Brown, director of charter schools in the Indianapolis Mayor&#8217;s Office. Indiana did a <a href="http://openstates.org/in/bills/2013/HB1338/">find-and-replace</a> in its state charter law in 2013 and swapped out the word &#8220;sponsor.&#8221; &#8220;We wanted folks to understand we&#8217;re here to provide accountability. We&#8217;re not necessarily charter school advocates.&#8221;</p>
<p>But in many states, those lines can blur. And some entities such as colleges or nonprofits &#8211; by virtue of relying on donations as a source of revenue &#8211; may be particularly susceptible to outside influence or the blurring of mission.</p>
<p>Grand Valley State University, a public university in Michigan, is one of the largest charter-school authorizers in the state. Roughly one-third of the charter schools it oversees are run by a single operator, National Heritage Academies, a powerful for-profit firm with 80 schools across nine states. But that&#8217;s not the extent of the relationship between the university and the company. </p>
<p>NHA&#8217;s founder and chairman, J.C. Huizenga, serves as a <a href="https://www.gvsu.edu/giving/jc-huizenga-232.htm">director</a> at the Grand Valley State University Foundation. And though he&#8217;s not an alumnus, he&#8217;s in a special class of donors that have given <a href="http://issuu.com/devcommstudent/docs/gvu_foundation_annual_report_on_giv">$1 million or more</a> to the university, which also oversees more of his schools than any other regulator in the state. </p>
<p>Timothy Wood, Grand Valley State University&#8217;s Special Assistant to the President for Charter Schools, told ProPublica, &#8220;We have a large number of NHA schools in our portfolio for one reason only &#8211; performance.&#8221;</p>
<p>But academic performance has been mixed at the NHA schools under Grand Valley&#8217;s watch, with a few recognized for <a href="http://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,4615,7-140-22709_62255---,00.html">high or improved</a> performance and <a href="http://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,4615,7-140-22709_62253---,00.html">twice as many flagged</a> for having some of the highest achievement gaps in the state. And although charter-school boards are supposed to be in control of schools and have the power to hire and fire contractors such as NHA, the Detroit Free Press reported last year that regulators at Grand Valley State University <a href="http://archive.freep.com/article/20140624/NEWS06/306240028/metro-charter-academy-michigan">repeatedly</a> <a href="http://archive.freep.com/article/20140624/NEWS06/306240026/Detroit-enterprise-academy">backed</a> NHA over board members who had concerns about the company. </p>
<p>&#8220;I am convinced that Grand Valley and National Heritage are hooked at the joint,&#8221; one former board president, Sandra Clark-Hinton, told ProPublica. She resigned the board of an NHA charter school in 2010, feeling disempowered and frustrated both by NHA and by Grand Valley&#8217;s lockstep support of the company.</p>
<p>Asked about conflicts of interest, Grand Valley&#8217;s Timothy Wood stated, &#8220;There is absolutely no conflict of interest regarding National Heritage Academies and Grand Valley. We handle all applications the same.&#8221; J.C. Huizenga&#8217;s relationship is with the Grand Valley Foundation, which Wood said, &#8220;is a completely separate entity from the university itself.&#8221; (The university&#8217;s own website <a href="http://www.gvsu.edu/giving/gvu-foundation-407.htm">says</a> &#8220;The foundation is the umbrella organization and recognition society for all who give to the university.&#8221;) </p>
<p>National Heritage Academies, asked about Huizenga&#8217;s gifts to the university, also didn&#8217;t make a distinction. A spokeswoman for National Heritage Academies, Jennifer Hoff, responded with a statement: Huizenga &#8220;seeks nothing in return nor does he attempt to direct how his gifts are spent.&#8221; She added, &#8220;His generosity to Grand Valley State University began well before Mr. Huizenga involved himself with education reform and certainly preceded his involvement with charter schools.&#8221;</p>
<p>To the extent that there&#8217;s been attention paid to avoiding conflicts of interest, self-dealing or other ethical quandaries in the charter sector, it&#8217;s been focused on the school level, said Paul O&#8217;Neill, an education attorney and founder of Tugboat Education Services, a consulting firm that does work with charters, authorizers, and other groups. &#8220;For authorizers,&#8221; he said, &#8220;it&#8217;s been very off the cuff. It&#8217;s not formalized, and I think that&#8217;s a mistake.&#8221; </p>
<p>Often, charter-school regulators simply lack the resources and expertise. To tackle financial issues and spot potential fraud, for instance, authorizers need people on staff who truly understand audits, accounting, and can ask the right questions of charter schools and the large, national firms that often contract with schools, said Greg Richmond, president of the National Association for Charter School Authorizers. </p>
<p>&#8220;Many authorizers don&#8217;t have that, and they are totally overmatched by the folks doing this for a living,&#8220; Richmond said. Numbers from Richmond&#8217;s group indicate, for instance, that <a href="http://www.qualitycharters.org/assets/files/images/Media/State%20of%20Charter%20School%20Authorizing%20Infographic_2014.pdf">more than half</a> of the nation&#8217;s charter-school regulators oversee only a single school. &#8220;Many, many agencies that are authorizers do not allocate enough staff or the right staff to do this work.&#8221;</p>
<p>In extreme cases, lack of expertise or capacity has led to charter-school regulation being further outsourced. One of Ohio&#8217;s biggest charter-school regulators is St. Aloysius Orphanage, a Catholic mental-health center in Cincinnati that technically oversees 43 charter schools. Under Ohio law, it&#8217;s eligible to regulate charter schools because it&#8217;s a nonprofit. Yet the charity contracts out regulatory work to a <a href="http://www.charterschoolspec.com/pages/client_spotlight.asp">for-profit vendor</a>, Charter School Specialists. </p>
<p>Charter School Specialists reviews the schools&#8217; finances and conducts school site visits on behalf of St. Aloysius. It writes the required <a href="http://www.charterschoolspec.com/data/FY14%20Sponsor%20Annua%20Report.pdf">annual report</a> on behalf of St. Aloysius, running through how the charter schools are doing. But Charter School Specialists also sells <a href="http://www.charterschoolspec.com/pages/services.asp">services</a> to charter schools, such as handling accounting, payroll or even providing schools with treasurers. In other words, it&#8217;s a for-profit middleman paid by both the regulator and the regulated. </p>
<p>For the former orphanage, authorizing brought in $2.6 million in fees paid by charter schools, the group&#8217;s 2013 tax filing <a href="http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2013/310/537/2013-310537048-0a789e8e-9.pdf">shows</a>. In the same year, St. Aloysius paid Charter School Specialists $1.5 million, leaving the nonprofit an extra $1.1 million. It&#8217;s not clear exactly what St. Aloysius has done to earn the difference &#8211; though Dave Cash, president of Charter School Specialists, said St. Aloysius &#8220;bears ultimate responsibility for all major decisions&#8221; and &#8220;provides an additional level of expertise and analysis.&#8221; St. Aloysius Orphanage did not respond to requests for comment. </p>
<p>There are indications that this unusual oversight arrangement may not be working. In 2013, <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/11/08/8-charters-lacked-for-pupils-not-state-money.html">eight charter schools</a> that were approved by the former orphanage opened, only to quickly fold, with &#8220;financial viability&#8221; listed as the official reason. The state lost $1.7 million in taxpayer dollars it had already given to the schools, and the state auditor is now <a href="https://ohioauditor.gov/news/pressreleases/Details/2405">scrutinizing</a> St. Aloysius. The funds so far have not been recovered.</p>
<p>Recognizing its problem with weak oversight, Ohio has begun to administer <a href="http://education.ohio.gov/getattachment/Topics/School-Choice/Community-Schools/Forms-and-Program-Information-for-Community-School/Community-School-Sponsors-%E2%80%93-Review-of-Quality-Prac/Quality-of-Sponsor-Practices-Review-for-posting-3-28-13.pdf.aspx">in-depth evaluations</a> and assign ratings to charter school regulators, which officials hope will give them a way to identify and <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/02/gov_kasich_wants_to_add_more_teeth_to_charter_school_oversight_rules_and_let_charters_seek_local_tax_levies.html">weed out</a> bad ones. For a state with about 65 authorizers, though, evaluating all of them will take years. Officials say they expect to complete about 10 evaluations each year.</p>
<p>In Minnesota, where a similar process has been in the works, ratings for four authorizers <a href="http://education.state.mn.us/mdeprod/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILE&amp;dDocName=057886&amp;RevisionSelectionMethod=latestReleased&amp;Rendition=primary">are expected</a> to be made public in May, with the process extending into 2017. The Audubon Center&#8217;s rating is scheduled to be issued in December.</p> <p class="note related-note"><p><em><strong>Related coverage:</strong> Read about how some charter schools &#8220;sweep&#8221; nearly all their public dollars <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/when-charter-schools-are-nonprofit-in-name-only">directly into private firms</a>, or our piece on how a chain of charter schools is <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/charter-school-power-broker-turns-public-education-into-private-profits">channeling millions of public education dollars</a> to for-profit companies controlled by the schools&#8217; founder.</em></p>
<p><em>If you have information about charter schools and their profits or oversight &#8212; or any other tips &#8212; email us at <a href="mailto:charters@propublica.org">charters@propublica.org</a></em>. </p></p><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/DVnLxZhRDB4" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-02-20T11:14:14-05:00http://www.propublica.org/article/inside-the-wild-world-of-charter-regulation/Red Cross Demands Corrections to Our ‘Misleading’ Coverage. Here’s Our Responsehttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/VSBMjiBxIYA/
http://www.propublica.org/article/red-cross-demands-corrections-to-our-coverage-our-response/#27060<p class="byline">by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/justin_elliott">Justin Elliott</a> and <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/jesse_eisinger">Jesse Eisinger</a>, ProPublica, and Laura Sullivan, NPR, </p>
<p>The American Red Cross recently sent ProPublica and NPR a request for corrections to our series of stories about the charity&#39;s failures in <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/the-red-cross-secret-disaster">responding to Hurricane Isaac and Superstorm Sandy</a>, <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/red-cross-ceo-has-been-misleading-about-donations">misleading donors</a> about how money is spent, and <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/senator-demands-answers-on-red-cross-finances">other issues</a>. We stand by our reporting and have found no instances of errors. We have responded in detail below, noting where the Red Cross&#39; assertions are misleading or incorrect.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The organization&#39;s request for corrections came shortly after we sent questions related to our ongoing reporting, specifically about the Red Cross&#39; response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake.</p>
<p>Our stories have been scrupulously fair to the Red Cross. The Red Cross had an opportunity to respond to every fact, detail, and allegation from our reporting before every story. Before the stories ran, we sent the Red Cross extensive and detailed questions, documents and had in-person interviews with officials. We took the charity&#39;s responses seriously and modified our stories based on the Red Cross&#39; responses.</p>
<p>Our core conclusions about the Red Cross&#39; response to Sandy and Isaac were drawn from the charity&#39;s own high-level internal assessments. We posted <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/red-cross-documents">those documents</a>.</p>
<p>We also interviewed dozens of Red Cross officials and volunteers, storm victims, and government officials.</p>
<p>Below, we have summarized the charity&#39;s complaints about our coverage, followed by our responses. (Here are the Red Cross&#39; <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1669928-10-serious-problems-with-propublica-npr.html">criticisms in full</a>.)</p>
<h2>
1. Emergency response vehicles diverted for PR purposes</h2>
<p><strong>Red Cross complaint (<a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1669928-10-serious-problems-with-propublica-npr.html#document/p1">pg. 1</a>):</strong></p>
<p>The charity takes issue with our reporting that executives diverted vehicles for public relations purposes. In particular, the Red Cross asserts that NPR&#39;s version of the story erroneously refers to multiple &quot;incidents&quot; where 40 percent of available emergency response vehicles were used for press conferences. The Red Cross also says our reporting relied on a &quot;lone source.&quot; It both denies that any emergency vehicles were diverted away from providing relief and says that the 40 percent figure is wrong.</p>
<p><strong>Our response:</strong></p>
<p>The Red Cross&#39; claim that we referred to multiple &quot;incidents&quot; where 40 percent of vehicles were diverted is based on its use of a misleading, truncated quotation.</p>
<p>NPR&#39;s <a href="http://wnpr.org/post/superstorm-sandy-anniversary-red-cross-under-scrutiny">transcript</a> makes clear the word &quot;incidents&quot; refers to a variety of episodes, not just the diversion of trucks:</p>
<blockquote>
Our reporting found incidents where the charity sent as many as 40 percent of its emergency vehicles to press conferences instead of into the field, where it failed to show up as promised to open shelters, allowed sex offenders to hang out in a shelter&#39;s play area.</blockquote>
<p>As for the Red Cross&#39; claim that our account was based on a single source, that is false.</p>
<p>The account of the Red Cross&#39; use of its vehicles for public relations purposes was based on interviews with multiple Red Cross officials and volunteers, including two current Red Cross senior managers. Their accounts were bolstered by internal documents and two <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1346529-letter-to-trevor-riggen-nov-18-2012.html#document/p2">contemporaneous emails</a>, one to senior Red Cross officials at the time and another a month later to Red Cross disaster volunteers.</p>
<p>After our story published, we were contacted by a Red Cross driver who received orders to stop delivering goods to storm victims and instead show up at the <a href="http://www.propublica.org/static/design/projects/red-cross/assets/8150427269.jpg">press conference cited</a> in the story with Red Cross President Gail McGovern.</p>
<p>&quot;The press conference did keep us from being able to provide any meaningful response that day,&quot; the driver told us.</p>
<p>Another Red Cross official at the event told us, &quot;The only purpose for sending the ERVs there was to show a large presence. The vehicles were told where to park, which was behind where the podium was set up,&quot; the official said. &quot;They were not providing services there.&quot;</p>
<p>All of those first-hand accounts are in line with the Red Cross&#39; own Lessons Learned PowerPoint presentation, produced out of national headquarters in Washington, which <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1225674-sandy-and-isaac-lessons-learned.html#document/p12">lists</a> &quot;diverting assets for public relations purposes&quot; as a &quot;hindrance to service delivery.&quot;</p>
<p>As for the Red Cross&#39; claim that even if vehicles were diverted, it wasn&#39;t 40 percent of them: In supporting its point, the group cites a &quot;disaster log&quot; showing a count of emergency response vehicles assigned during Sandy in New York state overall. It is not a log of the vehicles available in the relevant area, New York City. We asked Red Cross officials for that information before publication and they have declined to provide it.</p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="150" scrolling="no" src="http://app.stitcher.com/splayer/f/20308/37083952" style="border: solid 1px #dedede;" width="100%"></iframe></p>
<h2>
2. Hurricane Isaac volunteers sent where they weren&#39;t needed</h2>
<p><strong>Red Cross complaint (<a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1669928-10-serious-problems-with-propublica-npr.html#document/p3">pg. 3</a>):</strong></p>
<p>The charity disputes our reporting that the vast majority of Red Cross responders deployed in advance of Hurricane Isaac in 2012 were stationed in Tampa, Florida &ndash; site of the Republican National Convention &mdash; even after it became clear the storm would not hit there.</p>
<p>&quot;Again, this is the opinion of one Red Cross worker, unsubstantiated by the facts,&quot; the Red Cross writes. &nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Our response: </strong></p>
<p>While the Red Cross insists Tampa was under threat, the National Hurricane Center disagrees. As of Friday, Aug. 24, 2012, which was five days before landfall, Tampa was not under a hurricane threat or warning.</p>
<p>Five days out &quot;it was clear the center of the storm would pass well to the west of Tampa,&quot; Dennis Feltgen of the National Hurricane Center told us.</p>
<p>During the period that the Red Cross was stationing around 500 people in Tampa, a hurricane watch was under way for Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. Multiple people, including Red Cross volunteers and staffers, told ProPublica and NPR that the organization had difficulty moving people out of Tampa.</p>
<p>In our story, we noted that the Red Cross responded to our questions about Tampa by saying that &quot;the volunteers and resources we deployed to Florida did not come at the expense of other states.&quot; We wrote that the charity &quot;did not provide figures for how many mass care volunteers were on the ground in other states before Isaac.&quot; This is accurate.</p>
<p>ProPublica and NPR repeatedly asked the Red Cross for the number of volunteers on the ground in states other than Florida <em>before</em> Isaac. In response to those questions, the Red Cross gave us the number of &quot;personnel&quot; who were &quot;assigned and deployed&quot; <em>after</em> the storm. Those who are &quot;assigned and deployed&quot; are not necessarily on the ground, as the Red Cross concedes.</p>
<h2>
3. Failures in Bergen County, New Jersey</h2>
<p><strong>Red Cross complaint (<a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1669928-10-serious-problems-with-propublica-npr.html#document/p4">pg. 4</a>):</strong></p>
<p>The charity takes issue with our reporting that the Red Cross&#39; response to Sandy was particularly inadequate in Bergen County, New Jersey. The Red Cross says we ignored &quot;positive comments about the Red Cross while pretending only negative comments exist.&quot;</p>
<p><strong>Our response: </strong></p>
<p>The Red Cross is not disputing the fact at the center of our reference to Bergen County: That the charity did not show up at the county&#39;s Emergency Operations Center. &quot;They were the only major player not there,&quot; police lieutenant and Bergen County Emergency Management Coordinator Matthew Tiedemann told us.</p>
<p>Tiedemann&#39;s detailed, on-the-record, first-hand account was confirmed by a second Bergen County officer.</p>
<p>The Red Cross claims it &quot;offered to staff&quot; the Emergency Operations Center in Bergen County but that its offer was declined. We checked that before publication with Tiedemann.</p>
<p>&quot;That&#39;s totally untrue,&quot; he told us in a previously unpublished interview. &quot;We did not say they didn&#39;t need to staff it. Everyone needs to be in the EOC.&quot;</p>
<p>Further, Tiedemann told us that after we had sent inquiries to the Red Cross but before the story was published, an official from the group reached out to him and said, &quot;We&#39;ll fix everything.&quot; Tiedemann says he told the official: &quot;Sorry, I already talked to them and told them the truth.&quot;</p>
<p>Red Cross spokeswoman Suzy DeFrancis acknowledged to us in a statement before publication the Red Cross &quot;had communications issues with the Bergen County officials during the early days of Sandy, and we will continue to address these.&quot;</p>
<p>We did not include the quotes the Red Cross provided from New Jersey state officials because they came from <a href="http://www.state.nj.us/governor/news/news/552014/approved/20140708a.html">political</a> <a href="http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/11/gov_christie_taps_nominee_for.html">appointees</a> with no apparent knowledge of what happened in Bergen County in the days following Sandy.</p>
<h2>
4. Questioning the standing of a key source</h2>
<p><strong>Red Cross complaint (<a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1669928-10-serious-problems-with-propublica-npr.html#document/p5">pg. 5</a>):</strong></p>
<p>The charity says &quot;much of the criticism&quot; in our stories came from one source, whose role we inflated.&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Our response:</strong></p>
<p>Again, the central conclusions of our coverage were drawn from the American Red Cross&#39; own internal <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/red-cross-documents">high-level assessments</a>, including <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1346527-sandy-hot-wash.html">minutes</a> of a meeting with Red Cross executives in Washington.</p>
<p>The source whose standing the charity questions, Richard Rieckenberg, was one of the Red Cross&#39; top disaster specialists. He was the Mass Care Planning Chief or Mass Care Chief for 27 of the nation&#39;s worst disasters over the course of seven years. &quot;Mass Care&quot; is the term for feeding, sheltering, and providing emergency supplies after a disaster, the job the Red Cross is most known for. Before Sandy hit, Rieckenberg worked out of national headquarters in Washington, D.C. as the Mass Care Planning Chief and then took over as a senior Mass Care official in New York after the storm passed. Both of those roles gave him a perspective on the Red Cross&#39; efforts on the ground and in its overarching response.</p>
<p>Just a month earlier, the Red Cross&#39; current vice president for disaster operations praised Rieckenberg as &quot;<a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1348184-richard-rieckenberg-emails-after-red-cross-isaac.html#document/p4">an extraordinary asset to the country.</a>&quot;</p>
<h2>
5. The Red Cross wasted large amounts of food&nbsp;</h2>
<p><strong>Red Cross complaint (<a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1669928-10-serious-problems-with-propublica-npr.html#document/p6">pg. 6</a>):</strong></p>
<p>The charity says our reference to the Red Cross wasting food was based on a single Red Cross responder, specifically Richard Rieckenberg.</p>
<p><strong>Our response: </strong></p>
<p>Our story noted that Rieckenberg estimated that the Red Cross wasted 30 percent of its food in the early days after Sandy &mdash; and we also noted the Red Cross disputed the figure. As we reported, the Red Cross&#39; own internal documents also found that food waste was &quot;<a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1225674-sandy-and-isaac-lessons-learned.html#document/p8">excessive</a>&quot; because of &quot;kitchen manager inexperience,&quot; &quot;political pressures,&quot; and &quot;poor communication.&quot;</p>
<p>We repeatedly gave the Red Cross an opportunity to furnish an estimate of wasted meals. It never has. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<h2>
6. Empty trucks sent around just to be seen</h2>
<p><strong>Red Cross complaint (<a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1669928-10-serious-problems-with-propublica-npr.html#document/p6">pg. 6</a>):</strong></p>
<p>The charity disputes our reporting that the Red Cross sent around empty trucks after Hurricane Isaac just to be seen. In particular, the Red Cross writes, &quot;There is no evidence to support this other than the recollection, again, of Rick Rieckenberg.&quot;</p>
<p><strong>Our response: </strong></p>
<p>The Red Cross is wrong.</p>
<p>We have three sources with first-hand knowledge of the Red Cross sending around empty trucks after Isaac just to be seen: Rieckenberg, who was on the scene, noted that volunteers &quot;were told to drive around and look like you&#39;re giving disaster relief;&quot; another Red Cross official who was on the scene corroborated this account (that official was not quoted in the story); as did Jim Dunham, one of the Red Cross drivers ordered to drive around.</p>
<p>&quot;We were sent way down on the Gulf with nothing to give,&quot; Dunham told us. The Red Cross&#39; relief effort was &quot;worse than the storm.&quot;</p>
<h2>
7. Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern has serially misled donors</h2>
<p><strong>Red Cross complaint (<a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1669928-10-serious-problems-with-propublica-npr.html#document/p7">pg. 7</a>):</strong></p>
<p>The charity disputes that it has been <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/red-cross-ceo-has-been-misleading-about-donations">misleading donors</a> about how money is spent.</p>
<p><strong>Our response: </strong></p>
<p>The Red Cross is not alleging a factual error in <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/red-cross-ceo-has-been-misleading-about-donations">ProPublica and NPR&#39;s reports</a> that the Red Cross has long falsely claimed that 91 cents of every dollar donated is spent on services.</p>
<p>The Red Cross repeated this erroneous claim in annual reports, on its website and in multiple speeches, including at least four speeches and written statements by CEO Gail McGovern.</p>
<p>After inquiries by ProPublica and NPR, the Red Cross removed the statement from its <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1374954-red-cross-website-november-2014.html">website</a>. It acknowledged the claim was not &quot;as clear as it could have been, and we are clarifying the language.&quot;</p>
<h2>
8. Refusing to work with Occupy Sandy</h2>
<p><strong>Red Cross complaint (<a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1669928-10-serious-problems-with-propublica-npr.html#document/p8">pg. 8</a>):</strong></p>
<p>The charity denies our reporting that after Sandy Red Cross executives told staffers not to work with the well-regarded group Occupy Sandy out of concern over the connections to the Occupy Wall Street protest movement.</p>
<p><strong>Our response: </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/how-fear-of-occupy-wall-street-undermined-the-red-cross-sandy-relief-effort">Our story</a> about the Red Cross and Occupy Sandy is clear: In the early period after the storm multiple Red Cross workers were told by superiors not to work with Occupy Sandy. This was not only the time of greatest need but also when a partnership with the more nimble Occupy group could have benefitted the Red Cross&#39; slow-moving efforts.</p>
<p>Here are our sources for the prohibition, as we laid out in the story: interviews with three Red Cross responders with first-hand knowledge of the ban; interviews with Occupy Sandy volunteers; and a Department of Homeland Security-sponsored study that also cites a prohibition. In that study, a Red Cross chief of volunteer coordination&nbsp;who oversaw 25 workers <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1357203-the-resilient-social-network.html#document/p60/a192767">recalled&nbsp;</a>that &quot;he was told not to work with Occupy Sandy because of the affiliation with [Occupy Wall Street].&quot;</p>
<p>The DHS-sponsored study does not offer &quot;an alternative&quot; view, as the Red Cross claims. It merely cites examples of the Red Cross working with Occupy Sandy, which happened either in spite of the early ban or after it was lifted. The point of the story &mdash; and the reason our Red Cross sources were frustrated by the politically driven policy &mdash; was that if these partnerships had been allowed to occur earlier, storm victims would have benefitted.</p>
<p>The Red Cross writes that our story &quot;shockingly fails to note the balanced picture that emerges from comments such as these on pp. 40 and 41 [of the study]&quot; including the sentence &quot;Occupy Sandy described the American Red Cross as &#39;being our lifeline for hot meals.&#39;&quot;</p>
<p>In fact, that exact quote is included in our story as an example of fruitful cooperation.</p>
<h2>
9. Senator probes Red Cross finances</h2>
<p><strong>Red Cross complaint (<a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1669928-10-serious-problems-with-propublica-npr.html#document/p9">pg. 9</a>):</strong></p>
<p>The charity objects to various characterizations of Sen. Charles Grassley&#39;s inquiries into its finances. They call our <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/senator-demands-answers-on-red-cross-finances">headline</a> &quot;hyper-extended.&quot;</p>
<p><strong>Our response: </strong></p>
<p>The Red Cross is not alleging a factual error. Following our story on CEO Gail McGovern misstating how donor dollars are spent on services and overhead, Grassley announced: &quot;The public&#39;s expectation for an important, well-known organization like the Red Cross is complete, accurate fundraising and spending information. In reaction to the news reports on this topic, I&#39;m asking the Red Cross to elaborate on how it calculates the facts and figures given to the donating public.&quot;</p>
<p>Investigative staffers for the senator met with the group and asked for documents and a detailed breakdown of the charity&#39;s finances.</p>
<h2>
10. Difficulty of finding sources who praised the Red Cross</h2>
<p><strong>Red Cross complaint (<a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1669928-10-serious-problems-with-propublica-npr.html#document/p10">pg. 10</a>):</strong></p>
<p>The charity disputes a comment by one of us on a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2kw3dj/were_propublica_reporters_justin_elliott_and/">Reddit chat</a> that it was difficult to find sources who had positive things to say about the Red Cross&#39; response to Isaac and Sandy. The charity also complains that we did not include a survey it provided of those who received Red Cross help after Sandy.</p>
<p><strong>Our response: </strong></p>
<p>Our answer on our Reddit chat was: We &quot;interviewed dozens of people, including many Red Cross officials and volunteers, storm victims, and government officials. It was very difficult to find sources with positive things to say about the Red Cross&#39; responses to Sandy and Isaac. More importantly, multiple sources confirmed and fleshed out the Red Cross&#39; own conclusions from its internal assessments.&quot;</p>
<p>This is accurate. In our dozens of interviews it was quite rare to hear positive assessments of the Red Cross&#39; storm responses from people who do not currently work for the Red Cross&#39; public affairs office.</p>
<p>In fact, we did not include in our story many of the <em>negative </em>experiences we heard about the Red Cross.</p>
<p>For example, the Red Cross writes in its complaint that &quot;the reporters spoke with the Head of the Mississippi office of Emergency Management, who discussed our response to Isaac in what we understand was positive terms, and none of that was included.&quot;</p>
<p>It&#39;s accurate that ProPublica reporter Justin Elliott interviewed Robert Latham, executive director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. But Latham was quite critical of the Red Cross&#39; response. Echoing others we interviewed, Latham told us that the Red Cross&#39; reorganizations had alienated experienced disaster responders, contributing to an anemic Isaac response.</p>
<p>&quot;They really ran off a lot of their good people,&quot; Latham said in our interview. &quot;I had gotten to that point where I finally told the Red Cross, &#39;When you get through reengineering or whatever it is you&#39;re doing, you come see me.&#39;&quot;</p>
<p>Regarding the Red Cross&#39; survey of &quot;clients,&quot; as we explained to the Red Cross in November, we asked several data experts to look closely at the survey and they told us that it was not a representative sample.</p>
<p>It was not a survey of people representing a broad cross section that were affected by Sandy, as the Red Cross claimed. In the case of the New Jersey survey, for example, the survey pool was several thousand people who stayed in a Red Cross shelter. A key problem with the Red Cross response to the storm was its failure to help more victims; those people were not surveyed.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="note related-note"><p><em>If you have information about or experience with the Red Cross, particularly with the charity's work in Haiti, email <a href="mailto:justin@propublica.org">justin@propublica.org</a>.</em></p></p><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/VSBMjiBxIYA" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-02-18T18:17:08-05:00http://www.propublica.org/article/red-cross-demands-corrections-to-our-coverage-our-response/In Complicated Patz Case, Informant Could Testify About Suspect Not on Trialhttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/eBzbFWB6Dy8/
http://www.propublica.org/article/in-complicated-patz-case-informant-could-testify-about-suspect-not-on-trial/#27059<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/joaquin_sapien/">Joaquin Sapien</a>
</p>
<p>In the late 1980s, Stuart GraBois, a federal prosecutor in New York, had become obsessed with the disappearance of a 6-year-old boy named Etan Patz. GraBois had worked with the Manhattan boy&#8217;s parents, interviewed police investigators and developed a theory: The boy, who had gone missing while on the way to school one morning in 1979, had been abducted and killed by a convicted pedophile named Jose Ramos.</p>
<p>It was not an outlandish notion. Ramos, it turned out, had been a onetime boyfriend of Patz&#8217;s regular babysitter. He could well have known the boy&#8217;s route to school. And he had a record of abusing young children.</p>
<p>GraBois, as part of his pursuit, came to work with an informant in the New York prison where Ramos was an inmate. Get him to tell you what he did to the boy, GraBois told the informant. Figure out what he had done with the boy&#8217;s body, which had never been found.</p>
<p>And so the informant, a man named Jack Colbert who was imprisoned on a fraud conviction, soon got to work at the federal facility in Otisville, N.Y. He says he first met Ramos in the prison law library, and that Ramos soon asked him for help appealing his sex crime conviction. Sometimes the two attended Jewish services together. They eventually came to share a cell for a couple of months. Ramos, the informant says, occasionally would talk about the Patz case.</p>
<p>One night, Ramos woke him in a panic. Colbert told ProPublica what happened next.</p>
<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no body,&#8221; Ramos, wild-eyed, said. &#8220;If there&#8217;s no body, can they convict me?&#8221; </p>
<p>In the coming weeks, Colbert may get the chance to tell his story to a jury in the murder case against Patz&#8217;s accused killer. The accused, however, is not Ramos, but instead a former bodega clerk from Patz&#8217;s Manhattan neighborhood who, out of the blue in 2012, confessed to strangling the boy on the morning he went missing in May 1979. The former clerk, Pedro Hernandez, has since recanted the confession, and his lawyer has argued that he is a mentally ill man who was manipulated into a confession by detectives eager to solve one of New York&#8217;s most notorious missing child cases.</p>
<p>The lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, has made clear that he intends to argue to the jury that it is much more likely that Ramos killed Patz. Ramos, he has noted, had access to the boy and a history of abuse.</p>
<p>GraBois is expected to testify as part of Hernandez&#8217;s defense. And Colbert, whose account has only appeared in a 2009 book about the Patz case, may testify, as well. The jury has been publicly notified that Colbert may be called as a witness.</p>
<p>Colbert&#8217;s name was not disclosed in the 2009 book, &#8220;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/After-Etan-Missing-America-Captive/dp/B0046LUJJG">After Etan: The Missing Child Case that held America Captive</a>,&#8221; by journalist Lisa Cohen. In 2013, ProPublica learned the informant&#8217;s identity, and interviewed him as part of its examination of the case against Hernandez. Colbert&#8217;s account of his time with Ramos was consistent with the version in the book and the one he had given GraBois years ago. GraBois has used Colbert&#8217;s information as he tried over the years to get New York prosecutors to charge and try Ramos. </p>
<p>Fishbein has said he intends to have Ramos himself testify at Hernandez&#8217;s trial, although the judge in the case has so far indicated he will not allow that to happen. At a hearing in 2013, Ramos refused to answer questions from reporters about any role he might have played in the Patz case, according to a local news account. Telephone calls to his lawyer were not returned.</p>
<p>When ProPublica spoke to Colbert in 2013, he lived in a dilapidated home in the Bronx brimming with canned goods and boxes upon boxes of documents. During the interview, he sat hunched over an antiquated desktop computer. He took a call about an unnamed business deal involving alcohol and buyers in China.</p>
<p>He was physically disheveled, as well. He wore a dirty t-shirt and shorts that exposed a sore on his knee the size of a man&#8217;s fist, oozing puss. He was scattered and eccentric and went on long conversational tangents. He was once interrupted by a friend in the house who chimed in with his own prison story. He rarely answered a question directly.</p>
<p>But, with time, Colbert went over the details of his relationship with Ramos. He described how he met Ramos, how he was recruited to spy on him, and how he gained the information he and the Patz family once hoped would land Ramos behind bars for life. While he said he still feared Ramos, he was no less sure of Ramos&#8217; guilt.</p>
<p>&#8220;I believe he did it and I believe he did other kids too,&#8221; Colbert said. </p>
<p>In 1989, Colbert was three years into a 13-year prison sentence. He had been convicted of running an international fraud scheme &#8211; purchasing expired chemicals in the United States and selling them at a large profit in developing nations. </p>
<p>Ramos, Colbert said, cut an odd figure at Otisville. He was unkempt. He stank. He attempted to grow and wear his hair in the style customary for Hasidic Jewish men. Ramos, in fact, was Puerto Rican and from the mostly Catholic South Bronx.</p>
<p>Colbert said Ramos soon told him he knew the Patz family personally because a woman he described as his &#8220;wife&#8221; used to babysit Etan. Ramos said he&#8217;d been in the Patzs&#8217; SoHo apartment, and he described its high ceilings.</p>
<p>Colbert, it turned out, knew GraBois. He had met him once at the U.S. Attorney&#8217;s office in New York when he was first brought in on the fraud charges. They were from the same Bronx neighborhood. So, in 1990, the informant wrote to GraBois, relayed what Ramos had told him, and offered further help.</p>
<p>By then, GraBois was eager to make a case against Ramos. He had questioned him once, two years earlier. Ramos had told him he saw Etan in Washington Square Park the day he went missing, that he had brought him back to his apartment, and that he had tried to have sex with him. The boy had resisted, and Ramos said he put him on the subway.</p>
<p>GraBois arranged for Colbert to share a cell with Ramos in the prison&#8217;s Segregated Housing Unit. The two would spend nearly every waking minute together. Colbert said he wasn&#8217;t thrilled with the idea. He told ProPublica that Ramos was temperamental and possessive. When an elderly inmate once tried to use Ramos&#8217; favorite typewriter in the law library, Ramos picked it up over his head and threatened to bludgeon the man with it.</p>
<p>Ultimately, Colbert had two separate stays with Ramos, once for two weeks, the second time for at least a month. Through both stints, Ramos would often ramble on about Patz, contradicting himself frequently. One minute, Colbert said, Ramos would say Patz was alive; the next, he&#8217;d say the boy was dead.</p>
<p>Colbert, by his account, managed to gather what felt like evidence. At one point, he and Ramos had a conversation about lower Manhattan and Ramos told him he knew where all of Etan&#8217;s school bus stops were located. He drew him a map. </p>
<p>GraBois eventually sent a second informant in to work on Ramos, and used the information provided by both men as part of an appeal to then Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. For years, the District Attorney&#8217;s office had kept the case open. GraBois laid out his information: Ramos&#8217; near confession to him; his known relation to the Patz babysitter; his history of sexual abuse; and the work of his two informants.</p>
<p>In 2002, Etan&#8217;s father, Stan Patz, met with Morgenthau&#8217;s deputies and begged them to prosecute Ramos.</p>
<p>&#8220;I just want to get the bastard who fucked over my son!&#8221; Patz, in a final plea, screamed at the Manhattan prosecutors, according to Cohen&#8217;s book, &#8220;After Etan.&#8221;</p>
<p>Morgenthau chose not to prosecute and eventually explained his decision.</p>
<p>&#8220;We spent a huge amount of time on that case,&#8221; <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/morgenthau-raps-da-hopeful-snyder-pandering-article-1.394258">he said</a>. &#8220;If we could go to a grand jury, we would in a minute. There&#8217;s no sufficient evidence and there&#8217;s absolutely no reason to open a grand jury investigation where you don&#8217;t have any admissible evidence.&#8221;</p>
<p>GraBois was disappointed.</p>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve always maintained that reasonable people differed,&#8221; GraBois told ProPublica in an interview in 2013. &#8220;They felt we didn&#8217;t have enough evidence&#8212;fine. We always felt we did. But it was their decision and I have to respect it.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Patz family did pursue a measure of justice by filing and winning a civil wrongful death case against Ramos in April 2004.</p>
<p>When Cyrus Vance succeeded Morgenthau in 2010, he too, declined a request to prosecute Ramos.</p>
<p>Now Vance&#8217;s office will have to reckon with the evidence against Ramos in a different way.</p><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/eBzbFWB6Dy8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-02-18T11:18:49-05:00http://www.propublica.org/article/in-complicated-patz-case-informant-could-testify-about-suspect-not-on-trial/Podcast: An Expert’s Take on a High-Profile ‘Suicide’ in Argentinahttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/oPUJHO7Sw30/
http://www.propublica.org/podcast/item/podcast-an-experts-take-on-a-high-profile-suicide-in-argentina/#27057<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/nicole_collins/">Nicole Collins Bronzan</a>
</p>
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<p>Sebastian Rotella knows Argentina.</p>
<p>A longtime foreign correspondent who spent five years in Buenos Aires, Rotella has an expert grasp of the country&#8217;s history of scandal &#8211; and in his eyes, the sudden death of an Argentine special prosecutor last month is just the latest chapter in the country&#8217;s chronicle of skullduggery.</p>
<p>Talking with Steve Engelberg in this week&#8217;s podcast, he explains that the shooting of the prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/alberto-nisman-argentinas-history-of-assassinations-and-suspicious-suicides">made international headlines</a> because he had recently accused the president, the foreign minister and others of conspiring to absolve Iranians accused in a 1994 attack in exchange for commercial deals.</p>
<p><iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/191598896&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false"></iframe></p>
<p>Suffice it to say, the initial theory, that Nisman committed suicide, has Argentines very suspicious &#8211; as they should be, says Rotella, a longtime foreign correspondent who counts Buenos Aires among his former posts.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s the fact that Nisman, working at home, had been communicating excitedly about his upcoming testimony to the Argentine National Congress before he was found shot in the head at point blank range, Rotella says. &#8220;A lot of people are sort of stunned how someone who seemed so determined and was reaching kind of a landmark moment in their career &#8211; and what was really a very personal crusade for him &#8211; could have taken the step of suddenly killing himself.&#8221;</p>
<p>More than that, Rotella explains, there&#8217;s Argentina&#8217;s long history of weak criminal justice and rampant corruption. &#8220;You have things like cases where police officers will be in cahoots with a band of criminals, allow them &#8211; and even help them &#8211; commit a series of robberies, then ambush them one day, kill them and claim a victory against crime,&#8221; Rotella says. &#8220;In fact, there&#8217;s even a term for it: it&#8217;s called an operetta. It&#8217;s like a staged victory against crime.&#8221;</p>
<p>Nisman, appointed in 2004 by President Nestor Kirchner, the current president's late husband, inherited an investigation &#8220;marred by all kinds of inexperience and ineptitude and corruption and false leads and breakdowns,&#8221; Rotella says.</p>
<p>Amid the initial shock of his death, Engelberg points out, conflicting statements from the government only stoked fears of foul play.</p>
<p>Rotella agrees, saying that while suicide is a plausible possibility, &#8220;the problem is, in Argentina, there is so much corruption, there is so much manipulation, there are so many cases where there is great suspicion that security forces played a role, that the almost automatic reaction of Argentines is to look for the sinister explanation, to doubt the official version, to see each new detail as potentially a red herring or a trap.&#8221;</p>
<p>What&#8217;s next? Engelberg asks. &#8220;Are there people on the scene who are going to do a professional, proper job here?&#8221;</p>
<p>Rotella sees cause for hope: a judiciary that has shown some independence and tenacity, along with heightened public scrutiny. But no matter how diligent the investigation, he says, Argentines can be forgiven for any enduring suspicion.</p>
<p>Hear the full podcast on <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=352685624">iTunes</a>, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/propublica">SoundCloud</a> and <a href="http://stitcher.com/s/profile.php?fid=20308">Stitcher</a>, or read Rotella&#8217;s analysis of the case <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/alberto-nisman-argentinas-history-of-assassinations-and-suspicious-suicides">here</a>.</p><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/oPUJHO7Sw30" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-02-17T11:31:42-05:00http://www.propublica.org/podcast/item/podcast-an-experts-take-on-a-high-profile-suicide-in-argentina/VA Center’s ‘Flat Stanley’ Research Claims and More in MuckReads Weeklyhttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/Cy4FRSGRwKA/
http://www.propublica.org/article/va-centers-flat-stanley-research-claims-and-more-in-muckreads-weekly/#27056<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/amanda_zamora/">Amanda Zamora</a>
</p>
<p><a href="http://watchdogsarasota.heraldtribune.com/2015/02/08/settling-squalor-hardship-called-home/"><strong>Leaky stoves. Backed-up sewage. Mold.</strong></a> These are the types of conditions Florida health inspectors are supposed to deter in more than 800 migrant labor camps across the state. But a Watchdog Sarasota analysis found many camps continue to operate despite &quot;unsatisfactory&quot; ratings by state inspectors. The system that favors camp owners, who receive advance notice of inspections, can reschedule visits and often avoid the strictest penalties. <em><span style="background-color:#fcfed1;">&mdash;&nbsp; Sarasota Herald Tribune via @<a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=jfloum&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">jfloum</a></span></em></p>
<p><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/02/12/16751/us-troops-burned-waste-hazardous-open-pits-while-safer-incinerators-sat-idle"><strong>The U.S. spent $20 million on incinerators in Afghanistan &mdash; then exposed soldiers to burn pits anyway</strong></a>. Aware of the health risks associated with burn pits, the Defense Department invested millions in incinerators. But according to an inspector general&#39;s audit, many of them were defective or never used, in many cases because &quot;officials did not take sufficient steps to ensure the proper management of contracts for the construction of the incinerators,&quot; the inspector general reported. <em><span style="background-color:#fcfed1;">&mdash;&nbsp;Center for Public Integrity via @<a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=JuliaHarte1&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">JuliaHarte1</a></span></em></p>
<p><a href="http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/local-military/waco-va-center-has-produced-modest-research-made-d/nj6jN/#9b3e7056.257299.735639"><strong>VA center touts research with questionable claims (and an essay on Flat Stanley)</strong></a>. The VA Center of Excellence for Research on Returning War Veterans in Waco has lagged behind its peers in publishing research in recent years, according to an analysis by the Austin American-Statesman. And the work it has claimed credit for includes studies with no connection to veterans issues, material published in non-peer-reviewed publications and research authored by people not employed by the facility. <em><span style="background-color:#fcfed1;">&mdash;&nbsp;Austin American-Statesman via @<a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=JinATX&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">JinATX</a></span></em></p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/nyregion/the-hidden-money-buying-up-new-york-real-estate.html?module=RelatedCoverage"><strong>Time Warner Center, a tower of secrecy.</strong></a> The New York Times&#39; five-part examination of America&#39;s most expensive residential real estate found that anonymous shell companies purchased nearly half the top properties. Foreign investors are fueling a real estate boom, with little scrutiny of their identities and backgrounds, the Times found. At the Time Warner Center, the newspaper found at least 16 foreign owners tied to government investigations. <em><span style="background-color:#fcfed1;">&mdash;&nbsp;New York Times via @<a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=brizzyc&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">brizzyc</a></span></em></p>
<p><strong>MuckReads Local, Rhode Island:</strong> <a href="http://wpri.com/2015/02/13/how-state-lawmakers-can-become-local-judges/">Once considered a conflict, Providence clears state lawmakers to serve as local judges</a> <em><span style="background-color:#fcfed1;">&mdash; WPRI News via @<a href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.twitter.com%2Fresources%2Fbuttons&amp;region=follow_link&amp;screen_name=DanMcGowan&amp;tw_p=followbutton&amp;variant=2.0">DanMcGowan</a></span></em></p>
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/Cy4FRSGRwKA" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-02-13T16:24:23-05:00http://www.propublica.org/article/va-centers-flat-stanley-research-claims-and-more-in-muckreads-weekly/A History of Violence: Accusations But No Justice in Liberiahttp://feeds.propublica.org/~r/propublica/main/~3/D9gj_qXg-sU/
http://www.propublica.org/article/a-history-of-violence-accusations-but-no-justice-in-liberia/#27055<p class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.propublica.org/site/author/t_christian_miller/">T. Christian Miller</a>
</p>
<p>Christopher Vambo had been accused by Catholic church officials and others of being responsible for the <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/is-this-man-responsible-for-the-murders-of-5-american-nuns">1992 murder of five American nuns</a>. Prince Johnson had overseen the torture and death of Samuel Doe, the former president of Liberia. Neither man was ever charged or otherwise held responsible.</p>
<p>Today, Johnson is a legislator in Liberia and Vambo is a security guard for one of the country&#8217;s largest communications firms. <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/firestone-and-the-warlord/who-killed-the-nuns/">Frontline</a> and ProPublica found both men and talked with them about their pasts and the elusive question of justice in Liberia.</p>
<noapp>
<iframe id="firestone-nuns" width="100%;" height="376" src="http://video.pbs.org/viralplayer/2365420340" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" seamless></iframe>
</noapp> <p class="note related-note"><p><em><strong>Related coverage: </strong>See ProPublica and Frontline's full investigation of the American company that played a role in Liberia's brutal civil war in <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/firestone-and-the-warlord-intro">Firestone and the Warlord</a>. And read more about <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/is-this-man-responsible-for-the-murders-of-5-american-nuns">the man accused of murdering five American nuns</a>.</em></p></p><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="//feeds.feedburner.com/~r/propublica/main/~4/D9gj_qXg-sU" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>2015-02-13T16:23:10-05:00http://www.propublica.org/article/a-history-of-violence-accusations-but-no-justice-in-liberia/